Question

I have text like this

template
template
template_results
template

And I need to replace it to this

template_form
template_form
template_results
template_form

How can I replace every match of template that is not followed by _ character in Vi?

I tried it like this

:%s/template[^_]/template_form    - Pattern not found
:%s/template\[^_]/template_form   - Pattern not found
:%s/template[_]/template_form     - This works, but the pattern is opposite of what I need

Thank you 🙂

Answer 1

Use negative lookahead:

:%s/template\(_\)\@!/template_form/gc

This means match any “template” not followed (\@!) by any “_”

See: :help /zero-width