VIm: copy match with cursor position atom to local variable

Question

I'm searching for a way to copy match result to local variable in vim script.

The issue is that I want to match text that includes cursor position atom \\%# , that is, for example: [A-Za-z:]*\\%#[A-Za-z:]\\+ , which matches identifiers like ::namespace::ParentClass::SubClass text under cursor (so <cword> does not work for me).

I would like to use this later in a script, but the more I dig the more I start to wonder if that's even possible (or: if I should do it differently, by collecting current line, cursor position and then just extract the identifier under cursor manually).

If that's not possible from within the vim script - what would be the idea behind the \\%# atom? what is its use?

Answer 1

You have two options:

• separate the pattern into parts before and after the cursor, get the current line, separate into before / after cursor, and match each with the separated patterns; this uses getline() , strpart() , and matchstr() , and is just like what you've hinted at in your question.
• use search() twice from the current position, once to find the end of the match after the cursor, once to find the begin of the match before / on the cursor, then use getline() and strpart() to extract the matching text:

function! GetMatch(pattern)
    let start = searchpos(a:pattern, 'bcnW')[1]
    if start == 0
        return ''
    endif
    let end = searchpos(a:pattern, 'cenW')[1]
    if end == 0
        return ''
    endif
    return strpart(getline('.'), start - 1, end - start + 1)
endfunction