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Asked: 2026-05-11T15:58:38+00:00

I need to get all text between <Annotation> and </Annotation> , where a word

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I need to get all text between <Annotation> and </Annotation>, where a word MATCH occurs. How can I do it in VIM?

<Annotation about='MATCH UNTIL </Annotation>   ' timestamp='0x000463e92263dd4a' href='     5raS5maS90ZWh0YXZha29rb2VsbWEvbGFza2FyaS8QyrqPk5L9mAI'>                                                                           <Label name='las' />   <Label name='_cse_6sbbohxmd_c' />   <AdditionalData attribute='original_url' value='MATCH UNTIL </Annotation>       ' /> </Annotation> <Annotation about='NO MATCH' href='     Cjl3aWtpLmhlbHNpbmtpLmZpL2Rpc3BsYXkvbWF0aHN0YXRLdXJzc2l0L0thaWtraStrdXJzc2l0LyoQh_HGoJH9mAI'>   <Label name='_cse_6sbbohxmd_c' />   <Label name='courses' />   <Label name='kurssit' />   <AdditionalData attribute='original_url' value='NO MATCH' /> </Annotation> <Annotation about='MATCH UNTIL </ANNOTATION>     ' score='1' timestamp='0x000463e90f8eed5c' href='CiZtYXRoc3RhdC5oZWx     zaW5raS5maS90ZWh0YXZha29rb2VsbWEvKhDc2rv8kP2YAg'>   <Label name='_cse_6sbbohxmd_c' />   <Label name='exercises_without_solutions' />   <Label name='tehtäväkokoelma' />   <AdditionalData attribute='original_url' value='MATCH UNTIL </ANNOTATION>' /> </Annotation>
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1 Answer

  1. Does it have to be done within vim? Could you cheat, and open a second window where you pipe something into more/less that tells you what line number to go to within vim?

    — edit —

    I have never done a multi-line match/search in vi[m]. However, to cheat in another window:

    perl -n -e 'if ( /<tag/ .. /<\/tag/)' -e '{ print '$.:$_'; }' file.xml | less

    will show the elements/blocks for ‘tag’ (or other longer matching names), with line numbers, in less, and you can then search for the other text within each block.

    Close enough?

    — edit —

    within ‘less’, type

    /MATCH

    to search for occurrences of MATCH. On the left margin will be the line number where that instance (within the targeted element/tags) is.

    within vi[m], type

    :n

    where ‘n’ is the desired line number.

    Of course, if what you really wanted to do was some kind of search/yank/replace, it’s more complicated. At that point, awk / perl / ruby (or something similar which meets your tastes … or xsl?) is really the tool you should be using for the transformation.

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