Skip to next batch of search results (or find next non-match)?

Question

So you search /needle, and end up trapped in a haystack of result lines. Is there a quick way to skip to the first non-matching line (and then the next batch of results)?

E.g. I'm viewing the results of updatedb -v, which shows paths considered by the locate engine, and I'm trying to figure out why a particular *.svg file isn't beeing considered. Searching for /svg leads me first somewhere deep inside /home/user/, where there are a whole lot of .*svg lines. How can I easily skip over all contiguous matches and go to the first non-matching line (and then probably repeat and so on)? Perhaps define a key mapping that reverses the search?

Answer 1

I was trying to come up with something fairly short and found this novel approach (novel to me anyways...I'd never tried it before).

There is an inverse counterpart to :g (global command): :v. This will run specified commands on all lines that don't match the given pattern. Because it's really easy to invoke when a pattern is already in use (i.e. :v// {cmds}, I was wondering if there's a way to break out of it easily at the first line it operates on (i.e. the first line below the cursor without the offending pattern). I found that :visual does the trick. (See update, though.)

One added requirement, though, is that you need to give a range or the process will begin at the start of the file which we definitely don't want. So what you want is a range starting with the current line (.) and going as far as the end of the buffer ($)...

:.,$v// vis

and that's it. You'll be on the next line that doesn't have the pattern. It's easy to map it, too...

:nnoremap <leader>x :.,$v// vis<cr>

The nice thing with this approach is that you don't need to use a different search and thus you won't have to deal with getting your original search back as the active one. If there is a downside to it it may be a little slow depending on various factors (i.e. YMMV).

Update: A twist. :visual is actually behaving as :e and the above will not work cleanly if the file has unsaved changes. Do :w before running the above and it will work as described.