Question

I found substitue in vim has a range parameter:

:[range]s/pattern/sring/[c]/[g]/[e]/[i]/[I]/[p]

But I’m wondering if it would be handy to let the substitution occur only in the visual selection.

Anyone know how to do that?

Answer 1

Yes, you could do that.

After visual selection, press : will give you :'<,'>, '<,'> is the [range] part.

Then do the substitute like below but note that this will affect the entire line(s):

:'<,'>s/foo/bar/g

If you would like to change foo to bar only in the visually selected area (i.e., character-wise or block-wise selection) then you’ll have to use the \%V atom:

:'<,'>s/\%Vfoo/bar/g

The article Search and replace in a visual selection (archive) has much more useful info on the topic.