vim: find a line containing pattern that is not in the neighbouring lines - Super User

Question

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65912808/vim-find-a-line-containing-pattern-that-is-not-in-the-neighbouring-lines

Answer 1

You'd want to use regex capture groups, as follows:

/v%(PATTERN.*
.*)@<!(PATTERN)%(.*
.*1)@!

This might look scary, but it's actually quite simple:

1. v is used to enable "very magic" regex (avoids the usage of backslashes for most special characters)
2. PATTERN.* .* is PATTERN, followed by anything, a newline, and anything again
3. (...)@<! is the pattern for negative look-behind: it means that we don't want what's between the braces to exist. So in our case, all of step 2 shouldn't exist
4. (PATTERN) This is our actual word, this should exist! We capture it with braces for future usage
5. .* .*1 is anything, a newline, anything again, and our captured group (see step 4)
6. %(...)@! is a negative look-ahead, as before, we don't want what's between the braces to exist.

So basically, we want PATTERN, which is:

• not preceded by a line containing PATTERN
• not succeeded by a line containing PATTERN