Using Ctrl-A in Vim command line to increment a number

Question

In normal mode (in Vim) if the cursor is on a number, hitting Ctrl-A increments the number by 1. Now I want to do the same thing, but from the command line. Specifically, I want to go to certain lines whose first character is a number, and increment it, i.e., I want to run the following command:

:g/searchString/ Ctrl-A

I tried to store Ctrl-A in a macro (say a), and using :g/searchString/ @a, but I get an error:

E492: Not an editor command ^A

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

You have to use normal to execute normal mode commands in command mode:

:g/searchString/ normal ^A

Note that you have to press Ctrl-VCtrl-A to get the ^A character.