Regex find first 2 characters of every word in vim

Question

In Vim, how do you find the first 2 characters of every word in a file and replace it.

I'm actually looking to use matchadd for a plugin, but I'm struggling with vim's particular regex.

I have tried:

\w\{2}

But this gets the next set of 2 characters.

I have also tried:

\w\{2}\{-}

But this doesn't work as it's a syntax error.

I really want a non greedy regex on any 2 characters per word.

Can you show us what you've tried so far? – Kev Sep 17 '13 at 17:05 — Kev, Sep 17 '13 at 17:05

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 17 '13 at 17:34

2

Try with word-boundaries. In vim are \< for the beginning of word and \> for the end. I use very-magic option (\v) so I don't need to escape them:

:s/\v<\w{2}(\w*)>/\1/g

answered Sep 17 '13 at 17:34

Birei

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This was VERY helpful, but I get Pattern not found. – David Sep 17 '13 at 18:03
1

In `vim` if you apply a substitution command to a line without a match, it throws a **Pattern not found** error. You have to ensure before it that it will match with the `global` command. Look at its help page: `help global` – Birei Sep 17 '13 at 19:43

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 19 '13 at 06:32

0

It turns out all I really needed was:

\<\w\{2}

Thanks Birei for the hints (upvoted). Note, for this to work properly, I did not need the "\>" etc.

answered Sep 19 '13 at 06:32

David

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Regex find first 2 characters of every word in vim

2 Answers2