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regexvimfindnegative-lookbehind

strange behavior in vim with negative look-behind

So, I am doing this search in vim:

/\(\(unum\)\|\(player\)=\)\@<!\"1\"

and as expected it does not match lines that have:

player="1"

but matches lines that have:

unum="1"

what am i doing wrong? isn't the atom to be negated all of this: \(\(unum\)\|\(player\)=\)

naturally just doing: /\(\(unum\)\|\(player\)=\) matches unum= or player=.

Solution

  • Your pattern is 

    \(
    \(unum\)\|
    \(player\)=
\)\@<!"1"

    which is equivalent to

    \(
    \(unum\)\|
    \(player=\)
\)\@<!"1"

    And it must be

    \(
    \(unum\|player\)=
\)\@<!"1"

    Just remove one closing and one opening parenthesis.

    And, writing \" is strange: in situations where you have to escape " you also need to escape slash.