In Vim, how do I match on "=" but not on "=="?

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regex
vim

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123

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+5 Q:

In Vim, how do I match on "=" but not on "=="?

I've tried a number of different search patterns:

[^=]=[^=] works but only if = is not at the beginning/end and it also matches the sandwiching characters
=\@!==\@! seems like it should work because \@! matches nothing but requires a match, but it doesn't (see :help pattern-overview)
[^=]\@==[^=]\@= also doesn't but seems like it should

Suggestions?

+5 A:

Ah hah: =\@<!==\@!

me2 2010-02-23 22:30:20

Ahhhhh, it's got eyes!!!

dsimcha 2010-02-23 22:31:01

For reference, seems that \@<! should be used on the left of a pattern and \@! should be used on the right. It's not obvious that they form a matched pair, but they do.

me2 2010-02-24 00:12:49

FYI, those are `vim`'s version of negative lookbehind and negative lookahead. In most Perl-derived regex flavors your regex would look like this: `(?<!=)=(?!=)`. ref: http://www.regular-expressions.info/lookaround.html

Alan Moore 2010-02-24 00:43:12

Can you explain your answer to regex newbies?

Mosh 2010-02-24 05:18:58

`\(...\)\@<!` means «not preceded by ...», `\(...\)\@!` means «not followed by ...». These are zero-width matches: they must be matched, but they do not add symbols to the match.

ZyX 2010-02-24 13:15:48

ansaurus

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In Vim, how do I match on "=" but not on "=="?

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