delete lines that match a pattern from a given line to the end of the file

Question

If I have a file with a lot of comments in it and I want to delete all of the comments from say, line 3 to the end of the file, what's the best way to do it?

I'm stuck, since what I first tried doesn't seem to do quite what I want:

:3,$/^#/d

Instead of looking for the pattern and deleting lines with it in the range from 3 to the end of the file it deletes all of the lines from 3 to through a line that matches the pattern, and then stops.

So how do I apply an ex command to a range of lines. In this case it's to to the end of a file, but would it be different if I were to do it to a mark, or between lines 10 and 20 or other ranges?

Answer 1

Use the :global command for that:

:3,$g/^#/d

You can apply it to lines not matching a pattern:

:3,$g!/^#/d

You can use the full range mechanism with it (see :help :range):

:.,/#define/+3g/^#/d

And you can use it with any command:

:3,$g/^#/s/foo/bar/g

It's one of the most powerful commands in Vim, please see :help :global for details.