Case preserving substitute in Vim

Question

Can we do case-insensitive substitution and preserve existing case in Vim?

What I mean is: searching for BadJob and replacing with GoodJob would do the following replacements:

'badjob' -> 'goodjob'  
'BadJob' -> 'GoodJob'  
'badJob' -> 'goodJob'  
'BADJOB' -> 'GOODJOB'

Similar question for Visual Studio: Case preserving find/replace in Visual Studio

This should be a vim feature. It makes so much sense.

Bach
– Bach

2014-07-03 07:58:07 +00:00
Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 7:58 — Bach
– Bach, Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 7:58

Mark Lodato · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-17 22:59:21Z

185

Use abolish.vim:

:%S/badjob/goodjob/g

answered Apr 17, 2014 at 22:59

Mark Lodato

54k5 gold badges44 silver badges33 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

7 Comments

Andrew Keeton Over a year ago

We do not deserve Tim Pope.

Foobar Over a year ago

This plugin doesn't seem to work for me. If I a word like BadJob and I want to replace it with GoodJob, I can't use %S/badjob/goodjob/g. It fails to detect a match.

shivams Over a year ago

@Roymunson What you need to do is this: %S/BadJob/GoodJob/g, then the Subvert command will switch to mixed-case mode and will do all the substitions as given by OP.

Luke Griffiths Over a year ago

@shivams Does the presence of mixed case anywhere in the arguments to %S activate mixed-case mode, or does the input argument BadJob need to literally match the thing you're trying to replace? The former seems like strange ux, and the latter seems to defeat the purpose.

run_the_race Over a year ago

With this answer, how would abolish know to capitalise the 'J' in GoodJob? I would imagine at the very least one needs %S/BadJob/GoodJob/g

|

LB40 · Accepted Answer · 2009-04-23 16:44:52Z

29

I don't know if this is the kind of solution you're looking for... but i've used this: keepcase.vim

There's no support otherwise in vim...

answered Apr 23, 2009 at 16:44

LB40

12.4k17 gold badges76 silver badges109 bronze badges

Comments

Gabriele · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-27 12:20:47Z

19

What about

:%s/\Cbadjob/goodjob/
:%s/\CBadJob/GoodJob/
:%s/\CbadJob/goodJob/  
:%s/\CBADJOB/GOODJOB/

See: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2287449/5599687

answered Jan 27, 2021 at 12:20

Gabriele

7618 silver badges22 bronze badges

3 Comments

AlastairG Over a year ago

What does the \C (or \c in other answers) do?

Gabriele Over a year ago

@AlastairG it forces case match search: linuxize.com/post/vim-find-replace/#case-sensitivity

AlastairG Over a year ago

So :%s/\Cbadjob/goodjob/ is the same as :%s/badjob/goodjob/c. I've never seen that syntax of adding flags before. Thanks.

fc. · Accepted Answer · 2009-04-23 16:54:13Z

14

sure u can

:s/\cbad/\= strpart(submatch(0), 0 ,1) == toupper(strpart(submatch(0), 0, 1)) ? "GOOD" : "good"/

ps. i'm guessing keepcase.vim encapsulates some similar logic :)

answered Apr 23, 2009 at 16:54

fc.

1815 bronze badges

4 Comments

Luc Hermitte Over a year ago

Yes it does since 2007: :%SubstituteCase/\cbadjob/GoodJob/g ^^

fc. Over a year ago

Meaning since gVim 7.2? I tried it in gVim 7.1 (12-May-2007) and it din't work :(

Luc Hermitte Over a year ago

No, I've added the :SubstituteCase command to the plugin in 2007. That's all. The plugin is available on vim.org, and it is not shipped with vim as usual with with most plugins.

Aaron Thoma Over a year ago

1. This fails when the user has :set ignorecase. 2. Bad will be substituted by GOOD instead of Good. 3. The "job" part of the question is ignored, so this will also replace lambada → lamgooda. Fixes and explanations for these bugs and a few other things in my answer. (Also LOLOWLs!)

Aaron Thoma · Accepted Answer · 2022-03-06 21:59:42Z

For most (non-complex) cases, i recommend @rampion’s answer over mine.
If you got a minute, my post might be still be worthwhile, though. Level up your awareness for scripting gotchas.

You can just paste and adapt this:
_{(Of course, if you do this from time to time, you will want a plugin instead of this monstrosity. But for some who are in a hurry and only need it once, this is a quick hack for your pasting pleasure:)}

:%s/\cbad\zejob/= ( submatch(0)[0] is# toupper(submatch(0)[0]) ? 'G' : 'g' ) . ( submatch(0)[1] is# toupper(submatch(0)[1]) ? 'OOD' : 'ood' )

Apart from the search pattern, you have to edit the four 'strings' in the replacement code: Edit the parts in bold:

:%s/\cbad\zejob/=
( submatch(0)[0] is# toupper(submatch(0)[0]) ? 'G' : 'g' ) .
( submatch(0)[1] is# toupper(submatch(0)[1]) ? 'OOD' : 'ood' )

Don't use this 'orange' version for pasting, since its linebreak characters will also break the command.

/\ze is vim regex syntactic sugar for marking a positive lookahead: The pattern after \ze is checked for, but not substituted.

*`is#`*?? Let me explain… (If interested.)

# (also in ==# and others) enforces case sensitivity. Otherwise, with :set ignorecase (which I use, because that is required for the useful :set smartcase), vim will consider 'a' == 'A'!!

Crazy as it is, we really should account for it: Because it is user-settings-dependent, == should NEVAR be used! (Except where that would actually be what you want.) I will even follow the recommendation to use ==# when comparing integers: http://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com/chapters/22.html#code-defensively

is# instead of ==# is another way of coding defensively: It improves type safety: http://google.github.io/styleguide/vimscriptguide.xml?showone=Type_checking#Type_checking
It should be used when comparing against a string literal.

'single-quoted' instead of "double quoted" strings are another good practice: http://google.github.io/styleguide/vimscriptguide.xml?showone=Strings#Strings

_{HT @fc. - this answer builds on their [answer](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/782511/case-preserving-substitute-in-vim/782617#782617), fixing a few shortcomings.}

rampion · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-10 21:35:32Z

8

If you're only matching an exact (case-independent) string with a few possible capitalizations, another possibility is:

:s/abc/\={'abc':'xyz','Abc':'Xyz'}[submatch(0)]/i

edited Sep 10, 2018 at 21:35

answered Mar 1, 2018 at 14:40

rampion

89.5k49 gold badges208 silver badges321 bronze badges

Comments

Ingo Karkat · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-06 06:57:29Z

2

An alternative to the keepcase plugin is SmartCase - replacing words while keeping original case. (Don't let yourself be discourage by the bad ratings.)

answered May 6, 2013 at 6:57

Ingo Karkat

174k16 gold badges265 silver badges341 bronze badges

2 Comments

Michael Härtl Over a year ago

Is there a trick to shorten those hard to remember and tedious to type commands like :%s/file\A\?size/\=SmartCase("LastModifiedTime")/ig?

Ingo Karkat Over a year ago

@MichaelHärtl: You can use the :SmartCase command. I've extended that in my own fork. Note that this requires ingo-library as a dependency.

Sergio Abreu · Accepted Answer · 2023-09-23 17:26:02Z

All the problem is you have set: ignorecase in your .vimrc probably

You can program Vim to do sensitive/insensitive operation during both search and replace!

"Ctrl-h activating:
nnoremap <ctrl-h>  <Esc>:set noignorecase<CR><CR>:s%//<Right><Right><Right>

" Insensitive:
inoremap / <Esc>:set ignorecase<CR><CR>/<Right>
nnoremap / <Esc>:set ignorecase<CR><CR>/<Right>

" Case SENSITIVE search: (using key \ to search):
nnoremap \ <Esc>:set noignorecase<CR><CR>/<Right>

Alan Gómez · Accepted Answer · 2023-06-28 17:36:53Z

0

Of course, you can do this:

First declare some variables containing cases and replacements:

let a = ['badjob', 'BadJob', 'badJob', 'BADJOB']

let b = ['goodjob', 'GoodJob', 'goodJob', 'GOODJOB']

Second, apply a for loop as follow:

for i in range(0,3) | exec '%s/' . a[i] . '/' . b[i] . '/g' | endfor

Note that range function starts at 0.

Best regards.

answered Jun 28, 2023 at 17:36

Alan Gómez

3881 gold badge4 silver badges11 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Case preserving substitute in Vim

9 Answers 9

7 Comments

Comments

3 Comments

4 Comments

Comments

Comments

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

9 Answers 9

7 Comments

Comments

3 Comments

4 Comments

Comments

Comments

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Linked

Related