Vim Tricks

Searching for Non-ASCII Characters

Vim regular expressions can use hexadecimal to represent non-ASCII code points, but the syntax differs for literal characters and character classes. To search for the number 0, try /\%x30. But to search for any non-ASCII code point, try /[^\x00-\x7F] (note: the omitted percent sign).

Similar syntax is available for Unicode code points, especially multibyte characters. To search for left curly quotes, try /\%u201c. To search for left or right curly quotes, try /[\u201c-\u201d].

Quoting Words

Affixes can be applied programmatically using word deletion and registers. For example, to quote the currently selected word, use ciw'Ctrl+r"'.

• ciw - delete selected word and enter insert mode

• ' - insert the leading quote mark

• Ctrl+r" - insert the contents of the " register, a.k.a. the deleted word

• ' - insert the trailing quote mark

This method can be used to apply any affixes. To surround an SPSS string variable name with the trimming functions, use ciwrtrim(ltrim(Ctrl+r")).

CategoryRicottone