Vim search in C/C++ code lines

Question

Is there any way to search a string in a C/C++ source file while skipping commented lines?

Answer 1

This pattern searches for a string that is not preceded by the two C++ commenting conventions. I've also excluded '*' as the first non-whitespace character, as that's a common convention for multi-line comments.

/\(\(\/\*\|\/\/\|^\s*\*[^/]\).*\)\@

Only the first and fourth foo are matched.

foo
/* foo
* baz foo
*/ foo
// bar baz foo

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Putting \v at the beginning of the pattern eliminates a bunch of backslashes:

/\v((\/\*|\/\/|^\s*\*[^/]).*)@

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You can bind a hotkey to this pattern by putting this in your .vimrc

"ctrl+s to search uncommented code
noremap  /\v((\/\*\|\/\/\|^\s*\*[^/]).*)@