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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-21T20:55:14+00:00

I use GVim on Windows 7. I want to learn how to put newline

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I use GVim on Windows 7.

I want to learn how to put newline characters by using regex substitutions. To do this I try to use \r and \n metacharacters but the substituted text doesn’t show normal newlines.

For example, at the beginning I have:

line 1
line 2

Before substitution

I use the following substitution expression:

:%s/\n/\n\n/g

Then GVim produces the following text:

line 1^@^@line 2^@^@

After substitution with \n as newline characters

Instead, if I use \r\n in the substitution expression

:%s/\n/\r\n/g

Then GVim produces the following text:

line 1
^@line 2
^@

After substitution with \r\n as newline

What are those ^@ characters?

How to use newline characters in the substitution expression properly?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    ^@ is a nul

    For some reason, vim wants to see \r in the replacement text in order to insert a newline. (\n in the replacement inserts a nul.)

    So, after succesfully locating newlines by running /\n, try:

    s//\r/

    Or to add an extra newline:

    s/$/\r/

    On the pattern side, \r means an actual (015) CR character, leading to the following strange-looking command when you want to replace returns with newlines:

    s/\r/\r/

    No, it’s not a no-op.

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