How do I break a line with :substitute?

Question

I usually have to worry about escaping search parameters to get special characters to match literally, but this time I'm seeing a problem with my replacement string.

I want to take text like this:

@@ something @@ should_be_on_another_line

And turn it into this:

@@ something @@
 should_be_on_another_line

/ @@ / matches the second @@ pair on each line just fine, but when I try this command:

:%s/ @@ / @@ \n/g

I actually end up with this:

@@ something @@^@ should_be_on_another_line

I tried escaping the @@ \n in the replacement as \@\@ \n, but that didn't help (same results).

Answer 1

You are close. The newline should be \r in your substitute command.

Try

:%s/ @@ / @@ \r /g

from :help :%s

  <CR>        split line in two at this point
              (Type the <CR> as CTRL-V <Enter>)                  s<CR>
  \r          idem                                               s/\r
  \<CR>       insert a carriage-return (CTRL-M)
              (Type the <CR> as CTRL-V <Enter>)                  s/\<CR>
  \n          insert a <NL> (<NUL> in the file)
              (does NOT break the line)                          s/\n

EDIT: The issue is not about escaping the @ in your substitute command. The meaning of \n differs between the search or the replace side of the expression. The \n on the right side of the expression inserts ^@.

This SO question has more details, in particular: :h s/\n from this answer

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