Replace all instances of character between tags with vim

Question

I need to replace all instances of / character with \ between < filename >...< / filename > tags.

The file has like 2.000 of those tags and I only need to replace the / character inside those tags.

How can i do?

Answer 1

Edit: Given the new information, the below substitution would probably work:

:%s/<filename>\zs.\{-}\ze<\/filename>/\=substitute(submatch(0), '\/', '\', 'g')/ 

Explaination:

• %s: substitute across the entire file
• /<filename>: start of pattern and static text to match against
• \zs: start of the matched text
• .\{-}: any character, non greedy
• \ze: end of matched text
• <\/filename>/: end of targeted tag and pattern
• \=: evaluate the replacement as a vim expression
• substitute(submatch(0), '\/', '\', 'g')/: replace all /'s with \ in the matched text.

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Original answer:

I'm going to assume you mean XML-style tags here. What I would do is visually select the area you'd like to operate on, then use the \%V regex atom to only operate on that selection.

vit:s!\%V/!\\!g

Should do the trick. Note that when pressing :, vim will automatically add a range for the visual selection, the actual substitution command will look like:

:'<,'>s!\%V/!\\!g