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Tip 14 Previous Tip • Next Tip

Created: February 24, 2001 Complexity: basic Author: Yegappan Minimum version: 5.7 Karma: 562/234 Imported from: Tip#14

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To highlight all search matches in a file, set the following option:

:set hlsearch

When this option is set, if you search for a pattern, all matches in the file will be highlighted in yellow.

To disable the highlighting temporarily, enter (this is a command, not an option):

:nohlsearch

This command removes the highlighting for the current search. The highlighting returns for the next search.

To disable highlighting completely, set the following option:

:set nohlsearch

[edit] Mappings

Here are some alternative mappings that you could use in your vimrc to simplify changing search highlights.

" Press Space to turn off highlighting and blank message.
:noremap <silent> <Space> :silent noh<bar>:echo ""<CR>

" Press Ctrl-N to turn off highlighting.
:noremap <silent> <C-N> :silent noh<CR>

" Toggle highlighting on/off.
:noremap <F4> :set hls!<CR>

[edit] References

• :help 'hlsearch' Option to control search highlighting.
• :help :nohlsearch Command to temporarily remove search highlighting.
• :help :match You can highlight more than the search pattern.

[edit] Comments

With the following in vimrc, you can press Enter to clear search highlighting.

" Clear search highlight by hitting Enter.
" The <tt>/<BS></tt> is a trick to clear the command line.
" The final <CR> restores the standard behaviour so
" pressing Enter moves to the next line.
:nnoremap <CR> :nohlsearch<CR>/<BS><CR>

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A hack to temporarily remove highlighting is to search for nonexistent text:

/xxxxx

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You can use a less prominent highlight (for gvim):

:hi Search guibg=LightGreen
or
:hi Search guibg=LightBlue

Or you can use modify the colours for vim:

:hi Search ctermbg=LightGreen ctermfg=red term=bold cterm=bold

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