How can I quote text in a search regex?

Question

I want to yank text from a window and search for it but the text contains characters not interpreted literally by the search command, e.g. a file path. Is there an easy way I can quote the yanked text when entering the search command?

Answer 1

You can search for literal text by using the \V modifier, which means very nomagic after which only the backslash keeps it special meaning.

In my .vimrc I have this command to search for text literally:

:com! -nargs=1 Search :let @/='\V'.escape(<q-args>, '\\')| norm! n

Answer 2

There is unfortunately no option to have search input interpreted as raw text.

There is something close to it though: the nomagic option causes most characters (but not all) to be interpreted literally.

To activate nomagic for a single search, prefix the search pattern with \M.

You can also activate nomagic globally (:set nomagic). Vim's help warns that this might break plugins (though many plugin writers take care to explicitly set the desired magic mode for their patterns).

The following characters still won't be interpreted literally in nomagic mode and will need to be escaped with a \ (backslash):

• $ end of line
• \ escape character
• / or ? (depending on whether you are searching forward or backward) or any other separator that you have chosen if you are searching on the command line

See :h nomagic or :h \m.

Answer 3

An easy way to 'cheat', particularly for paths or other text containing forward slashes, is to use ? instead of /.

Source:

• Search without need to escape slash | Vim Tips Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia