How to search for lines matching current line in vim

Question

I usually search for words by :/string, but if I have to search entire current line, how to do that.

event: 1  beacon: 0x02              //line 1
event: 19 beacon: 0x02              //line 2
event: 1  beacon: 0x03              //line 3
event: 1  beacon: 0x02              //line 4
event: 8  beacon: 0x01              //line 5
event: 19 beacon: 0x02              //line 6
event: 1  beacon: 0x02              //line 7

For example, if cursor is presently at line 1 how to search similarly as :/ for text containing entire current line. The cursor should jump then to matching line 4, and again to line 7

Answer 1

Here's how I'd do it:

1. Yank the line (into the unnamed register), without including the newline at the end: 0y$
2. Initiate a very nomagic search: /\V
3. Add the yanked line: <c-r>"
4. Fire off the search: <cr>

As @EvergreenTree points out in a comment, you can of course create a mapping to perform all the steps in one go:

nnoremap <leader>* 0y$/\V<c-r>"<cr>

Relevant help topics:

:help registers
:help /magic
:help c_CTRL-R

N.B. If the line you're searching for contains backslashes, you'll still need to go through and escape them (by adding another backslash), even with a very nomagic search.

Answer 2

Especially for mapping purposes, I find using getline() more elegant than doing the yanking yourself. Calling getline() with a string '.' returns the line under the cursor. There are two good options for using this:

:exec '/' . getline('.')

which parses the strings '/' and what is returned from getline() together and executes that as a vim command.

or

/<C-r>=getline('.')<CR>

which uses the expression register @=. The expression following = is evaluated after the first <CR> and placed in the command line.

Answer 3

The existing answers all fail if your line contains certain items that are interpreted as a part of a pattern. The \V point gets most of the way there but still messes up with the backslash.

Try this to escape the backslashes...

/\V<C-R>=escape(getline('.'), '\')

And then if you're using it in a mapping you'll need one or two <Enter>s at the end depending on how you want it to work.

Answer 4

Personally I would get a visual star plugin (there are few out there). There is a nice Vimcast about this: Search for the selected text. This means you can select the line visually and then press *.

If a plugin isn't your thing you can add the following mapping to your vimrc:

xnoremap * :<c-u>let @/=@"<cr>gvy:let [@/,@"]=[@",@/]<cr>/\V<c-r>=substitute(escape(@/,'/\'),'\n','\\n','g')<cr><cr>

Note: Visual-block (<c-v>) is not supported for this mapping.

Answer 5

With vim-asterisk installed just use V$* (or 0v$*) to select the current line and search for it.

In the second command 0 is not necessary if the cursor is already on the start of the line.

Answer 6

One more way to do this is using the command-line window: yy/<Ctrl-F>p<Enter>

• Yank the whole line you need with yy
• Press / and then Ctrl-F to open command-line window
• Press p to paste the line
• Press Enter to start the search

Answer 7

http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Searching_for_expressions_which_include_slashes points out that the search register can be set directly, like this:

:let @/='/abc/def/ghi/'

This allows search on the line and works even when the line includes slashes.

So to make, say, \* map to a line search:

nnoremap <leader>* :set hlsearch<cr>:let @/=getline('.')<cr>