How to replace a character for a newline in vim?

Question

I'm trying

:%s/,/\n/g

but it inserts what looks like a ^@ instead of an actual newline, the file is not on DOS mode or anything.

What should I do?

EDIT: If you are curious, like me, check this other question as well.

Answer 1

Use \r instead of \n.

Answer 2

\r seems to work.

Answer 3

You need to use :%s/,/^M/g To get the ^M character, press Ctrl+V followed by ENTER

Answer 4

Ctrl-V pastes the contents of Windows system buffer.

Answer 5

With Vim on Windows use Ctrl-Q in place of Ctrl-V

Answer 6

Here's the trick: First, set your vi(m) session to allow pattern matching with special characters (ie: newline). It's probably worth putting this line in your .vimrc or .exrc file.

:set magic

Next, do:

:s/,/,^M/g

To get the ^M character, type ctrl-v and hit enter. Under Windows, do ctrl-q enter. The only way I can remember these is by remembering how little sense they make:

"What would be the worst control-character to use to represent a newline?"

"Either 'q' ( because it usually means "Quit") or 'v' because it would be so easy to type ctrl-c by mistake and kill the editor."

"Make it so."