Vim - yank into search register
editor, vi, vim
Solution
After pressing `/` to enter a search string, you can then use `Ctrl-R` and then type the letter representing the register that you want to use.
eg.
- First, `"Ayw` to yank a word into register A
- Then, `/ ^R A` to put the contents of register A into the search string.
Problem
Is there any easy/quick way to "yank" into vim's "last search" register ("/)? From the vim documentation, it appears that the answer is no, but that it can be assigned via a "let" command: ``` It is writable with ":let", you can change it to have 'hlsearch' highlight other matches without actually searching. You can't yank or delete into this register. ``` Ideally what I'd like to do is something like: ``` "/5yw ``` which would yank the next 5 words under the cursor & put them in the last search buffer Alternatively, if there is a way to search for the contents of a named register, that would work too. In other words, if I could do: ``` "A5yw ``` and then search for what is in register A, that would work too. The closest I can come is to yank into a named register & then copy that register into the last search register, e.g. ``` "A5yw :let @/=@A ``` At the risk of making a long question longer, I want to state that it's not always 5 words I'd like to "yank & search" -- sometimes it's 17 characters, sometimes it's to the end of the line, etc... so a hard-coded macro doesn't give me the flexibility I'd want.