In Vim how do I efficiently search and replace “ and ” with normal double quotes "

Question

I got this code snippet from a tutorial and I would like to search and replace all occurrences of “ and ”, with normal double quote ". How can I efficiently do it in Vim?

{
  “runtime”: {
  “DDP_DEFAULT_CONNECTION_URL”: “http://127.0.0.1:8100”
  },
  “import”: [
    “[email protected]”,
    “[email protected]”,
    “[email protected]”,
    “[email protected]”,
    “[email protected]”,
    “[email protected]”,
    “[email protected]”,
    “[email protected]”,
    “[email protected]”,
    “[email protected]”
  ]
}

Thank you.

1. Don't copy and paste, type. 2. You should probably report the issue to the persons in charge of the site on which you copied that snippet. 3. Just do a search/replace. — romainl, Apr 13 '17 at 07:33

score 10 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 06:45

10

You can show ascii code of character using ga in normal mode.
You can also put arbitrary utf8 code using Ctrl+vuhhhh for characters with code 0000 <= hhhh <= FFFF and Ctrl+vUhhhhhhhh for the rest in insert mode and command mode so when starting in normal mode you need to type, similar to @shash678 answer:

:%s/Ctrl+vu201c/"/g

edited Apr 13 '17 at 06:45

Lieven Keersmaekers

57,207
13
112
146

answered Apr 13 '17 at 06:21

mucka

1,286
3
20
36

E486: Pattern not found: %s//"/g – Jesus Nana Apr 13 '17 at 06:36
means Ctrl + v, you need to put `:%s/` then Ctrl + v (you will will be not able to see anything until you finish typing hex code), then `u` then `201c`, only after typing it all you will see your character `“`. – mucka Apr 13 '17 at 06:41
Got it thanks! Is there a way to do the search-replace on both quotes on one shot? something like %s/“|”/"/g – Jesus Nana Apr 13 '17 at 06:54
2

Yes, you can use regex-like search patterns, is this case `:%s/[”“]/"/g` – mucka Apr 13 '17 at 06:57
note for myself, press CTRL and v at the same time, type u201c, it will show as ", and type " as replacement – Gang Aug 21 '20 at 20:48

Sash Sinha · Answer 2 · 2017-04-13T19:51:40.887

9

In command-line mode you can use the following command to find each occurrence of “ and ” (in all lines), and replace them with ":

:%s/[“”]/"/g

EDIT:

To do this, (assuming you have the file open in vim):

1) hit the ESC key to ensure you are Normal mode.

2) hit : , you will notice : has appeared in box at the bottom of vim (that is the command line).

3) type the rest of the command for finding each occurrence of “ and ” (in all lines), and replacing both with ".

4) hit the ENTER key.

5) your done! The command line will say something like made 56 substitutions on 13 lines.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 19:51

answered Apr 13 '17 at 06:12

Sash Sinha

18,743
3
23
40

1

the problem is, how do I type that kind of quotes, on the command line? – Jesus Nana Apr 13 '17 at 06:15
not sure what kind of keyboard you're using, but on a standard US keyboard or macbook pro those special double quotes ( “ ” ) doesn't exist. – Jesus Nana Apr 13 '17 at 06:31
Oh I am on a macbook too, but I am using Windows, you can use Alt + 0147 to type the curly quotation mark `“`. On OSX you can do something similar use this link: http://www.wikihow.com/Type-Symbols-Using-the-ALT-Key and scroll down to mac. – Sash Sinha Apr 13 '17 at 06:39
Sorry, but that's inefficient way, I was looking for a "Vim way" to solve the problem. – Jesus Nana Apr 13 '17 at 06:46
1

@JesusNana You can also yank (vim's way of copying) the curly quotation mark from the file itself into the command line but I will let you research that for yourself :) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3997078/how-to-paste-yanked-text-into-vim-command-line – Sash Sinha Apr 13 '17 at 06:49

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 31 '18 at 20:24

To rephrase @mucka's answer:

:%s/[Ctrl+vu201cCtrl+vu201d]/"/g

The above is similar the command below, but it allows you to retrieve the special chars using hex code with Ctrl+v:

:%s/[“”]/"/g

To show hex code any character in your file, move your cursor over that character in normal mode and execute ga.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 24 '20 at 06:43

highlight the first smartquote before runtime, then hit e twice to select the other.
press y to yank. You now have a yank register with both types of smart quotes in it.
type :%s/[ and then press Ctrl+r and then " to paste the yanked text. Move backwards and remove the word runtime from the search, then move to the end and type ]/"/g and hit Enter

In Vim how do I efficiently search and replace “ and ” with normal double quotes "

4 Answers4