Is it possible to interactively delete matching search pattern in Vim?

There is a phrase that I want to look for in Vim. When found, I want to delete that occurrence of the phrase. What is the easiest way to cycle through all the occurrences (via n), and delete a match one by one (I do not want to delete all of them at once).

Note: I know I can delete a certain number of characters or a number of words, but I want to specifically remove the match of my search. Is this possible?

Solution 1:

http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Search_and_replace

Try this search and replace:

:%s/foo/bar/gc

Change each 'foo' to 'bar', but ask for confirmation first.

Press y or n to change or keep your text.

Solution 2:

There are 3 ways I can think of:

The way that is easiest to explain is

:%s/phrase to delete//gc

but you can also (personally I use this second one more often) do a regular search for the phrase to delete

/phrase to delete

Vim will take you to the beginning of the next occurrence of the phrase.

Go into insert mode (hit i) and use the Delete key to remove the phrase.

Hit escape when you have deleted all of the phrase.

Now that you have done this one time, you can hit n to go to the next occurrence of the phrase and then hit the dot/period "." key to perform the delete action you just performed

Continue hitting n and dot until you are done.

Lastly you can do a search for the phrase to delete (like in second method) but this time, instead of going into insert mode, you

Count the number of characters you want to delete

Type that number in (with number keys)

Hit the x key - characters should get deleted

Continue through with n and dot like in the second method.

PS - And if you didn't know already you can do a capital n to move backwards through the search matches.

Solution 3:

1. In my opinion, the most convenient way is to search for one occurrence first, and then invoke the following :substitute command:

:%s///gc

Since the pattern is empty, this :substitute command will look for the occurrences of the last-used search pattern, and will then replace them with the empty string, each time asking for user confirmation, realizing exactly the desired behavior.

2. If it is a common pattern in one’s editing habits, one can further define a couple of text-object selection mappings to operate specifically on the match of the last search pattern under the cursor. The following two mappings can be used in both Visual and Operator-pending modes to select the text of the preceding match of the last search pattern.

vnoremap <silent> i/ :<c-u>call SelectMatch()<cr>
onoremap <silent> i/ :call SelectMatch()<cr>
function! SelectMatch()
    if search(@/, 'bcW')
        norm! v
        call search(@/, 'ceW')
    else
        norm! gv
    endif
endfunction

Using these mappings one can delete the match under the cursor with di/, or apply any other operator or visually select it with vi/.

Solution 4:

The best way is probably to use:

:%s/phrase//gc

c asks for confirmation before each deletion. g allows multiple replacements to occur on the same line.

You can also just search using /phrase, select the next match with gn, and delete it with d.