Advanced searching in Vim

Question

Is there a way to search for multiple strings simultaneously in Vim? I recall reading somewhere that it was possible but somehow forgot the technique.

So for example, I have a text file and I want to search for "foo" and "bar" simultaneously (not necessarily as a single string, can be in different lines altogether).

How do I achieve that?

Answer 1

/^joe.*fred.*bill/          : find joe AND fred AND Bill (Joe at start of line)
/fred\|joe                  : Search for FRED OR JOE

Answer 2

Actually I found the answer soon after I posted this (yes I did google earlier but was unable to locate it. Probably was just searching wrong)

The right solution is

/(foo\|bar)

@Paul Betts: The pipe has to be escaped

Answer 3

Vim supports regular expressions by starting in command mode with a '/'.

So using something like "/(foo\|bar)" (as was stated before) would solve the problem. It's good to know why that works and what you are using (regular expressions).

Answer 4

/(foo|bar)