How to search a string with spaces and special characters in vi editor

Question

I edit in the vi editor. I want to search in the text for a specific phrase, e.g "Dec 1 15:13:00". I have tried this search string, but it's not working:

/Dec\ 1\ 15

How do I search for this string properly? Note that there may be more than one space between the parts.

It's pretty clear what he's asking for. I had the same question. — Lance Roberts, Mar 10 '16 at 16:21
I'm voting to re-open only so that it can be closed with migrated to superuser. — Joshua, Mar 10 '16 at 16:48

Xavier T. · Answer 1 · 2015-12-02T08:25:31.137

32

Numbers and spaces are not special characters so

 /Dec 1 15

is enough.

Generally speaking special characters are escaped with a \. For example, if you search for Dec., you should type /Dec\.

If you are using Vim, you might also want to check

:help pattern.txt

And specifically the magic chapter.

If you want to know if magic is set, type :set magic?

The magic option can change the behavior of pattern matching.

edited Dec 02 '15 at 08:25

answered Dec 02 '15 at 08:07

Xavier T.

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/Dec 1 15 not working ,E486: Pattern not found: Dec 1 15 – user5628973 Dec 02 '15 at 08:56
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@user5628973: you might have multiple spaces which would make the search fails. Try to play around because it should work. – Xavier T. Dec 02 '15 at 09:46
How can we exclude the multiple space? – user5628973 Dec 02 '15 at 10:29
@user5628973: /Dec[ ]*1 could work. (this work in my vim setup but I am not very familiar with the difference between vim and pure vi. – Xavier T. Dec 02 '15 at 19:54
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@user5628973 if this answers your question, can you please accept it? Thanks! – 1000Nettles Sep 11 '18 at 16:16

How to search a string with spaces and special characters in vi editor

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