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To restrict vim the search to a specific part of the text

How do we restrict the search to a specific part of the text referred in basic row-coiumn positioning mainly (and visual selection, an extra way, if one would give) on (neo)vim just like substitution

:9,99s/foo/FOO

Try :9,99/foo can't work as it does over the current file on buffer
So do n next search will not restricted to line 99 and not get wrapped around back to line 9 after search that

Solution

  • :help :/ is unaffected by ranges because it is itself a "range" (an "address", actually). Using it for search is a bit of an anti-pattern.

    And :help /, which would be more correct, doesn't take a range anyway.

    What you can do, though, is use the special atoms :help \%>l and :help \%<l directly in your regular expression pattern:

    /\%>9lclassName\%<12l

    where className will be matched if it is found:

    • after line 9, \%>9l,
    • and before line 12, \%<12l.

    Vim's regular expression flavor has lots of atoms like the ones above that are specific to the context of an interactive text editor. See :help pattern-atoms.