Why is my global command coupled with a range command matching more lines than expected?

Question

I have this file over here.

    <ul class="social-icons">
        <li><a href=""><span class="social_linkedin_square"></span></a></li>
    </ul>
    <ul class="other-icons">
        <li><a href=""><span class="other-icon"></span></a></li>
    </ul>

I'm trying to only print all the list items in the file using the global command.
(i.e. lines containing <li>...</li> NOTE: <li> and </li> can be on separate lines)

I tried typing this in the command line:

:g/<li>/.,/<\/li>/p

But for whatever reason it's including </ul> <ul class="other-icons"> rather than only the <li>...</li> lines. Alongside with a range error:

        <li><a href=""><span class="social_linkedin_square"></span></a></li>
    </ul>
    <ul class="social-icons">
        <li><a href=""><span class="another"></span></a></li>
E16: Invalid range

Isn't that weird since this global command matches only lines containing <li> and then the print command runs on each of those lines ending with </li> so it should stop the match at that same line? What am I missing?

UPDATE: The command works correctly only if <li> and </li> are on separate lines which is interesting.

Answer 1

When you have / characters in your pattern is is better to use another separator, for instance | (see :help :g).

I am guessing that too many separators are confusing the parsing engine.

The following command will do what you want with the example you gave (the <li> elements are all on a single line)

:g|<li>.*</li>|p

Here I am using | as a separator and .* captures everything up to </li>.

Answer 2

Reading through the documentation I found the answer. This is not related to the global command but mainly due to cmdline-ranges operating on the NEXT line matching the pattern rather than same or next line which I originally thought.

:h cmdline-ranges
    /{pattern}[/]   the next line where {pattern} matches     *:/*

So running :g/<li>/.,/<\/li>/p is akin to running :.,/<\/li>/p on each line containing <li>. And since /pattern/ matches starting from the NEXT line the original expression was basically unable to find a closing </li> on the last match which causes the range error.