normal mode delete with search pattern - not deleting whole match

Question

I have text in my buffer like this:

foo
bar
baz

and my cursor is on the "f" of foo.

Let's say I want to delete up-to-and-including the "a" in bar.

So in normal mode I try: d/ba<enter>

So this is invoking the delete command, then doing a forward search for "ba" and pressing enter.

I would expect this to delete up to the "r" in bar, basically including the search match in the deletion.

But, it just deletes the "foo" line, leaving "bar" in-tact, with the cursor at the start of the "bar" line.

I understand there are many other ways to accomplish this particular situation, but I am trying to understand this fundamental behavior.

Why is this occurring, and how can I use the / command so that it deletes/yanks/etc including the match?

Answer 1

Add \zs to the end of the search pattern. This will make it so that everything before \zs will be excluded from the actual match, but it is required to be there. The counterpart of \zs is \ze, which excludes everything after it from the match but requires it to be there.

For more help on \zs, see :help \zs.

As mentioned in VanLaser's comment, you can also use a search-offset to accomplish this. In you example, the command would be /ba/e<enter>, since the e offset has the effect of making the search an inclusive motion, thus deleting the match with the rest of the characters between it and the cursor.

For more on search offsets, see :help search-offset.