How can I toggle smartcase in Vim?

Question

I love smartcase, but there are times that I'd like to turn it off and search for just lowercase. Is there a builtin that will toggle smartcase, or do I need to write a function to toggle it?

Answer 1

If you want to toggle if off completely, just do

:set nosmartcase

But if you want to toggle the mode of one-two searches, use special symbols in your search patterns:

• \c makes the pattern ignore case, for example: /iGnOrEcAsE\c (matches "ignorecase");
• \C makes the pattern match case, for example: /matchcase\C (doesn't march "MatchCase").

Answer 2

If you add a bang after the option name in the set command, like this:

:set smartcase!

...it will toggle the option. You can create a key mapping to do this:

:map \s :set smartcase!<CR>

<CR> stands for carriage return. It represents the Return key.

Now just press \s and it toggles.

I usually write the mapping to also show in the bottom line whether the option is on or off, like this:

:map \s :set smartcase!<CR>:set smartcase?<CR>