Practical Vim, 2nd Edition

Tip 99

Delete Lines Containing a Pattern

Combining the :global and :delete commands allows us to cut down the size of a file rapidly. We can either keep or discard all lines that match a {pattern}.

This file contains links to the first few episodes from the Vimcasts.org archive:

global/episodes.html

<ol>
  <li>
    <a href="/episodes/show-invisibles/">
      Show invisibles
    </a>
  </li>
  <li>
    <a href="/episodes/tabs-and-spaces/">
      Tabs and Spaces
    </a>
  </li>
  <li>
    <a href="/episodes/whitespace-preferences-and-filetypes/">
      Whitespace preferences and filetypes
    </a>
  </li>
</ol>

Each list item contains two pieces of data: the title of an episode and its URL. We’ll use a :global command to expose each of these.

Delete Matching ...