I use emacs for viewing and editing code and other text files. I wanted to know if there is a way to search forward or backward for text which is marked in the current buffer. Similar to what I can do in notepad or wordpad. As in can I mark some text in the buffer and do a C-s or C-r and be able to search with the marked text without actually typing in the whole search text?
Thank you,
Rohit
@Alex nails it.
Another option I use quite often is C-s C-w to search for the word after the current mark. Hitting C-w repeatedly increases the search with additional words (e.g., C-s C-w C-w C-w searches for the 3 words after the current mark).
Similarly, C-s M-s C-e searches for the rest of the line after the current mark and C-s C-M-y searches for the character after the mark. These are both repeatable in the same way (the former by somewhat-awkwardly repeating M-s C-e after C-s).
Yes. M-W (to get a copy of the selected text) C-s <RET> C-y <RET>. Then repeat C-s as needed. Similarly for C-r.
You can find C-s help by doing C-h k C-s, and it says:
Type DEL to cancel last input item from end of search string. Type RET to exit, leaving point at location found. Type LFD (C-j) to match end of line. Type C-s to search again forward, C-r to search again backward. Type C-w to yank next word or character in buffer onto the end of the search string, and search for it. Type C-M-w to delete character from end of search string. Type C-M-y to yank char from buffer onto end of search string and search for it. Type M-s C-e to yank rest of line onto end of search string and search for it. Type C-y to yank the last string of killed text. Type M-y to replace string just yanked into search prompt with string killed before it. Type C-q to quote control character to search for it. Type C-x 8 RET to add a character to search by Unicode name, with completion. C-g while searching or when search has failed cancels input back to what has been found successfully. C-g when search is successful aborts and moves point to starting point.
If you try to exit with the search string still empty, it invokes nonincremental search.
Type M-c to toggle search case-sensitivity. Type M-s i to toggle search in invisible text. Type M-r to toggle regular-expression mode. Type M-s w to toggle word mode. Type M-s _ to toggle symbol mode. Type M-s ' to toggle character folding.
Type M-s SPC to toggle whitespace matching. In incremental searches, a space or spaces normally matches any whitespace defined by the variable ‘search-whitespace-regexp’; see also the variables ‘isearch-lax-whitespace’ and ‘isearch-regexp-lax-whitespace’.
Type M-s e to edit the search string in the minibuffer.
Also supported is a search ring of the previous 16 search strings. Type M-n to search for the next item in the search ring. Type M-p to search for the previous item in the search ring. Type C-M-i to complete the search string using the search ring.
Type M-% to run ‘query-replace’ with string to replace from last search string. Type C-M-% to run ‘query-replace-regexp’ with the last search string. Type M-s o to run ‘occur’ that shows the last search string. Type M-s h r to run ‘highlight-regexp’ that highlights the last search string.
Type C-h b to display all Isearch key bindings. Type C-h k to display documentation of Isearch key. Type C-h m to display documentation of Isearch mode.
Adopted Jackson's Answer for Swiper:
(defun swiper-isearch-selected ()
"Use region as the isearch text."
(interactive)
(if mark-active
(swiper-isearch (funcall region-extract-function nil))
(swiper-isearch)))
Additionally, if there is no selected region, it just falls back to the regular swiper-isearch.