How can I get vim find to ignore whitespace?

Question

I have XML entries that span two or more lines sometimes, and so I can look for something like this:

something on one line

But if I try the vim command /something on one line and the line is like this:

something on one 
line

then it doesn't find it, because the second text block is actually seen as

something on one^J           line

Which might have something to do with the fact that I'm using a DOS formatted file.

How can I get vim search to ignore whitespace and newlines?

Answer 1

In vim search, _s means a new line, a space or a tab. So you can try something such as:

/something on one\_s*line

to match the example string you used as example.

Answer 2

Replacing the spaces with \_s\+ manually is cumbersome. The Search for visually selected text topic on the Vim Tips Wiki has a mapping that does this for you for the current visual selection. You can use it like the built-in * mapping, to search (ignoring spaces) for the current selection. Very handy!