Regex For HTML Search and Replace

Question

I'm doing a simple search and replace command in vim and I'm trying to escape the <> and / characters so I can use them in my search expression. I realize there are more elegant ways of finding HTML tags, but what I'm really looking for is a localized search and replace command that will replace <h1>UNKNOWN MISSION</h2> with <h2>UNKNOWN MISSION</h2>. Here's my command where I try to escape the special characters:

:%s/\<h1\>UNKNOWN MISSION\<\/h2\>/\<h2\>UNKNOWN MISSION\<\/h2\>/

The pattern is not matching. Any ideas?

Couldn't you just replace h1 with h2? There shouldn't be other text in the document that contains that character combination. And you can do a find and replace by line so you (potentially) wouldn't interfere with other occurrences of h1. — mjgpy3
– mjgpy3, Commented Mar 25, 2013 at 19:57
The header is scattered throughout the document for strange reasons, and there are other instances of h1 and h2, so going line by line or simply replacing h1 with h2 is problematic. — user1427661
– user1427661, Commented Mar 25, 2013 at 19:58

mjgpy3 · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-25 20:02:17Z

3

:%s/<h1>UNKNOWN MISSION<\/h2>/<h2>UNKNOWN MISSION<\/h2>/g

Seems to be working for me. You only have to escape the backslash.

answered Mar 25, 2013 at 20:02

mjgpy3

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1 Comment

Peter Rincker Over a year ago

As @romainl said below stated, using an alternative separator would remove the need to escape the /. Also as very little is being changed in the substitution it might be use full to use \zs and \ze to mark the start and end of the matching text so the replacement becomes simpler. :%s#<h\zs1\ze>UNKNOWN MISSION</h2>#2#g For more help see :h \zs

Andrew Clark · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-25 20:01:59Z

1

You don't need to escape the <> characters, try the following:

:%s/<h1>UNKNOWN MISSION<\/h2>/<h2>UNKNOWN MISSION<\/h2>/

answered Mar 25, 2013 at 20:01

Andrew Clark

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Comments

romainl · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-25 20:39:17Z

1

I'd do the following…

Place the cursor on the first instance of UNKNOWN MISSION with:
```
/<h1<CR>
```
Yank until 2 with:
```
yt2
```
Do the substitution with:
```
:%s+<C-r>"2>+<C-r>"1>
```
where <C-r>" is used to insert the content of the default register in the command line and + is used as an alternative separator in order to avoid escaping slashes. After insertion, the whole command looks like:
```
%s+<h1>UNKNOWN MISSION</h2>+<h1>UNKNOWN MISSION</h1>
```

Add a /g flag if you need it.

answered Mar 25, 2013 at 20:39

romainl

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