Search and replace in Vim across all the project files

Question

I\'m looking for the best way to do search-and-replace (with confirmation) across all project files in Vim. By \"project files\" I mean files in the current directory, some

Answer 1

maybe do this:

:noautocmd vim /Search/ **/*
:set hidden
:cfirst
qa
:%s//Replace/gce
:cnf
q
1000@a
:wa

Explanation:

• :noautocmd vim /Search/ **/* ⇒ lookup (vim is an abbreviation for vimgrep) pattern in all files in all subdirectories of the cwd without triggering autocmds (:noautocmd), for speed's sake.
• :set hidden ⇒ allow having modified buffers not displayed in a window (could be in your vimrc)
• :cfirst ⇒ jump to first search result
• qa ⇒ start recording a macro into register a
• :%s//Replace/gce ⇒ replace all occurrences of the last search pattern (still /Search/ at that time) with Replace:
  • several times on a same line (g flag)
  • with user confirmation (c flag)
  • without error if no pattern found (e flag)
• :cnf ⇒ jump to next file in the list created by the vim command
• q ⇒ stop recording macro
• 1000@a ⇒ play macro stored in register a 1000 times
• :wa ⇒ save all modified buffers

* EDIT * Vim 8 way:

Starting with Vim 8 there is a better way to do it, as :cfdo iterates on all files in the quickfix list:

:noautocmd vim /Search/ **/*
:set hidden
:cfdo %s//Replace/gce
:wa