Can I search for a Unicode combining character in Vim?

Question

I have a file with the character ã (lowercase a + combining tilde). Encoding and fileencoding are both utf-8. ga shows

<a> 97, hex 61, octal 141 <~> 771, Hex 0303, Octal 1403

(but with the actual combining tilde in the <>) and g8 shows

61 + cc 83

Searching with /a\%u0303 works fine.

Searching for just \%u0303 gives E486 Pattern not Found.

Can I search for just the combining character without also searching for the base character?

Try this: /<ctr-v>u0303 type in normal mode / - start search <Ctr-u>v - init utf-8 code input 0303 - hexonal code combine character. Works fine for me. — Alex Kroll, Jun 9 '15 at 15:21
Works great - thanks! :g/<Ctrl-V>u0303 also worked from the command line. Please add as an answer so I can accept it. Much appreciated! (Vim docs at vimhelp.appspot.com/insert.txt.html#i_CTRL-V_digit ) — cxw, Jun 9 '15 at 16:06

Alex Kroll · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-09 16:13:50Z

Type in normal mode /<ctr-v>u0303
/ - start search
<Ctr-v>u - init utf-8 code input
0303 - hex code combine character.

:he unicode

Also :he mbyte-combining and :he utf-8-char-arg the last one covered case with commands like f, F and so on.

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