how can I substitute a single word via regular expression?
:s/\(\s\+\)word\(\s\+\)/\1new_word\2/g
Alternatively, rather than saving your whitespace and then
restoring it, you can use
:s/\<word1\>/new_word/g
This respects the "word" boundaries in vim, as defined by the
'iskeyword' setting. Andrea's requires that the boundary be
whitespace. Mine requires that the boundaries around a word are
non-"word" characters. Both are valid solutions, depending on
what you consider your word. Consider the example (with the period):
Your dog and my dog's dogged fleas are on his dog.
:s/\<dog\>/cat/g
Your cat and my cat's dogged fleas are on his cat.
Andrea's ":s/\(\s\+\)dog\(\s\+\)/\1cat\2/g" becomes
Your cat and my dog's dogged fleas are on his dog.
Both are perfectly valid regexps, that do exactly what they
describe. Depending on which you want/need, choose accordingly. :)
-tim
