how to replace word in vi editor globally in ubuntu

I want to replace the word "windows" globally in vi editor, by using any command.

The text to modify is:

windows is choice of everyone
windows is choice of student
windows is choice of engineer
windows is choice of web server

I tried this command:

:1,$s/Windows/UNIX/LINUX/g

but it's giving me the error E488: trailing characters. What's the problem?

4

2 Answers

Not sure why you have both Unix and Linux in your command. How about:

:%s/windows/linux/g

or if the replacement string is unix/linux:

%s/windows/unix\/linux/g

You need to escape the forward slash in your replacement text with a backslash as in UNIX\/LINUX.

As commented by [user:Panther] when using forward slashes in your search/replace strings, it is simpler to use a different delimiter. I prefer to use # so in your case it would be:

:% s#windows#UNIX/LINUX#

The g suffix is only needed if you expect to see windows more than once on a single line which your example does not show.

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