Substitute a word in which cursor in the current line

Question

How can I :substitute, in the current line, a word on which cursor is, but only after the cursor position.

e.g.: when doing (illustratively, may not exact correct command):

:s/<C-r><C-w>

that is user hit : s / Ctrl+R Ctrl+W

it will not substitute the word where cursor is if such word exists before cursor position.

Answer 1

The substitution command is:

:s/\v(%.c|%>.c)Ctrl+RCtrl+W

Where:

• \v turn on magic (that makes that special pattern atoms like (, | or % doesn't need to be escaped)
• \%.c match at the cursor column and
• \%>.c match after the cursor column

More information with: :help /\%c

But for this use case I would:

• use * to find the next occurence of the word at the cursor
• use cw keyboard command to change it
• use n to find the next occurence
• use . to repeat the change
• until the next occurences are changed
• use N to find the initial occurence
• use . to repeat the change

Looks complicate to explain but on most of the cases it will probably requires less typing.

Answer 2

A simplistic way to achieve the same result—with a little bit more of manual work—is to use :substitute's g and c flags. Using g will replace every occurrence on the line, not just the first. The c flag prompts the user for confirmation for each substitution. See :help :s_flags.

On the following line

To be or not to be

with the cursor on the first "be", run the command

:s/<C-R><C-W>/& a bee/cg

When asked for confirmation, reply n to keep the first "be" and y to replace the second one.

While this lacks the precision of Vivian's answer, I'd argue that the gc flags are more valuable in everyday "replace all (except this)" editing tasks.

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Totally unrelated non-disclaimer: originally I wanted ChatGPT to come up with a line with a repeated word but I had trouble signing in and my patience wore out after 30 seconds. No AI tools were used in writing this post. And sorry for using the lamest of Hamlet puns.