Emacs/docs/latest/emacs/Search

15 Searching and Replacement

Like other editors, Emacs has commands to search for occurrences of a string. Emacs also has commands to replace occurrences of a string with a different string. There are also commands that do the same thing, but search for patterns instead of fixed strings.

You can also search multiple files under the control of xref (see Identifier Search) or through the Dired A command (see Operating on Files), or ask the grep program to do it (see Grep Searching).

• Incremental Search		Search happens as you type the string.
• Nonincremental Search		Specify entire string and then search.
• Word Search		Search for sequence of words.
• Symbol Search		Search for a source code symbol.
• Regexp Search		Search for match for a regexp.
• Regexps		Syntax of regular expressions.
• Regexp Backslash		Regular expression constructs starting with ‘\’.
• Regexp Example		A complex regular expression explained.
• Lax Search		Search ignores some distinctions among similar characters, like letter-case.
• Replace		Search, and replace some or all matches.
• Other Repeating Search		Operating on all matches for some regexp.
• Search Customizations		Various search customizations.