How to replace special character in Linux VI Editor?

Question

I want to remove some special characters from a file in linux using vi editor, such as

{ 
}
:
[
] 

I tried below pattern but not working for all possible symbols above.

:%s/\{//g

got an error: E866: (NFA regexp) Misplaced { E64: { follows nothing E476: Invalid command

Answer 1

Overall, see :h:s and :h pattern . See man 7 regex .

\{ starts a bound in basic regular expression. vi does not really use basic regular expression, but anyway, it's like close to it. You want to match character { , and not repeat previous pattern, so just match { .

:%s/{//g

for all possible symbols above.

If you want to put [ ] inside a bracket expression [...] you have to put them as the last/first. So like []] matches a single ] , like [][] matches [ or ] .

:%s/[]{}:[]//g