正则表达式模式'{。*}'在Vim中不起作用，如预期的（I）

Question

I have a one-line text file opened in Vim:

a{b} {c}

I want to match strings enclosed by curly braces. If my cursor is at line 1 col 1 of the file and I do

:call search('{.*}', 'W')

The cursor will go to the first '{' after the character 'a'.

But if I repeat the search, the cursor does not go to the second '{' which is between 'b' and 'c', and echo search('{.*}', 'W') returns 0.

Why?

EDIT: Let me address the answer by @romainl

I understand that * is greedy, and I am OK matching {b} {c} first.

However, when the cursor is under the first { , the pattern should still be able to match {c} because {c} is after the cursor and agrees with the pattern.

Answer 1

romainl is right, vim apparently doesn't ignore the characters before the cursor when using search().

If you still wanna use a greedy operator inside the braces you can do this

echo search('\m\%#.\{-1,}\zs{.*}', 'W')

\\%# matches only after the cursor position, .\\{-1,} makes sure we match anything AFTER the first { if we're on it, \\zs excludes these from the actual match

Answer 2

* is greedy, it will match as many instances of the previous pattern as possible. This means that {.*} will match this:

a{b} {c}
 ^^^^^^^

instead of the desired:

a{b} {c}
 ^^^

You should use a non-greedy pattern like \\{-} :

{.\{-}}

which will match:

a{b} {c}
 ^^^

and:

a{b} {c}
     ^^^

on next call.

When trying to find the right search pattern, it is generally useful to do so on the command-line with 'incsearch' on. Try it with your original pattern and you will immediately see what is wrong.

See :help pattern-multi-items and :help \\{ .