search for lines which contain a pattern but do not contain a second pattern

Question

I need to search for lines which contain some word but do not contain a second word.

For example, find lines that contain the word "This" but not the word "red"

so that for a file containing these lines

This is a blue coat
This is a red  coat
This is a purple coat
That is a coat

The search would locate the first and third lines only.

Thanks for any advice!

Answer 1

And there is also another way with :global command, as follows:

:g/This\C/v/red/p

and the first :g command filter the lines contains This, and then passed into the second :v command to show lines that don't contain red, and at last, p (short for print) is applied to those lines with matches.

This is the charm of vim.

Answer 2

You can use this command to print lines containing This and not red:

:g/\(.*This\)\&\(.*red\)\@!

• \& separates the branches like a logical AND because we want the lines that satisfy the two conditions (branches),
• \(.*This\) is the first branch, it could simply be This but it is more generic that way,
• \(.*red\)\@! is the second branch, \@! means "zero width match if the preceding atom doesn't match", like a logical NOT.

In other words:

\(.*This\)  \&  \(.*red\)\@!
°°°°°°°°°°  °°  °°°°°°°°°°°°
'This'      AND NOT 'red'

Answer 3

Take a look at this post.

Combine it with @romainl answer and you can do whatever you want.

Example: Let's say I want to add a const to the functions which doesn't have them.

    handleChange = value => {

VIM script:

%s/\([ ]*\)\(\w* = .*$\)\&^\(\&\(.*const.*\)\@!.\)*$/\1const \2/gc

Output:

    const handleChange = value => {

Explanation:

\([ ]*\)\(\w* = .*$\)

- get me all lines which has word =

\&

- combine rules

^\(\&\(.*const.*\)\@!.\)*$

- the line shouldn't contain const.