CODEWITHSUNDEEP
searchvimubuntu-12.04
jonthalpy
jonthalpy

Reputation: 1051

Do certain characters need to be escaped to be searchable in vim?

I'm having what seems to me bizarre behavior with vim search functionality. As far as I can tell the problem is only with capital 'W'. Typing this character in the search bar as

/W

will instantly expand to 

/w ^I^I^I^I^I^I

preventing me from finding any instances of 'W'. The same happens if I try a search and replace. Typing 'W' in command mode will degrade to the 'w ^I^I^I^I^I^I' string without me doing anything.

I was wondering if 'W' is some sort of special character I need to escape or something. I don't see why it would be though, because I don't get this behavior on other computers. Just on my Ubuntu 12.04. Any solutions or input are appreciated.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 66

Answers (1)

Ingo Karkat
Ingo Karkat

Reputation: 172510

You probably have a command-line mapping for W.

:verbose cmap W

will tell you and where it is defined.

If you want to alias commands, you need to use a more refined mapping that only applies at the beginning of the command-line, or use a plugin like cmdalias.vim - Create aliases for Vim commands.

Upvotes: 3

Related Questions