From 86b899632ba294e03f9311f8beb32ba2595c520c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: jbranchaud <jbranchaud@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2015 15:33:45 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] Add Match The Beginning And End Of Words as a vim til.

---
 README.md                                   |  1 +
 vim/match-the-beginning-and-end-of-words.md | 22 +++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 23 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 vim/match-the-beginning-and-end-of-words.md

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 069d38a..ab210e1 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -257,6 +257,7 @@ smart people at [Hashrocket](http://hashrocket.com/).
 - [Jump To The Next Misspelling](vim/jump-to-the-next-misspelling.md)
 - [List All Buffers](vim/list-all-buffers.md)
 - [List Of Plugins](vim/list-of-plugins.md)
+- [Match The Beginning And End Of Words](vim/match-the-beginning-and-end-of-words.md)
 - [Marks Across Vim Sessions](vim/marks-across-vim-sessions.md)
 - [Moving To A Specific Line](vim/moving-to-a-specific-line.md)
 - [Navigating By Blank Lines](vim/navigating-by-blank-lines.md)
diff --git a/vim/match-the-beginning-and-end-of-words.md b/vim/match-the-beginning-and-end-of-words.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7e0e70d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/vim/match-the-beginning-and-end-of-words.md
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+# Match The Beginning And End Of Words
+
+Often when doing a substitution for an exact word, say `user` to
+`admin`, I will include spaces on either end of the regex pattern to avoid
+unintentional replacements. For example, I may use something like
+
+```
+:%s/ user / admin /
+```
+
+in order to avoid a substitution like `username` to `adminname`.
+
+In this case, the spaces can be replaced with zero-width regex characters
+that match the beginning and end of a word. These are `\<` and `\>`,
+respectively. Utilizing these, the previous substitution can be achieved
+with
+
+```
+:%s/\<user\>/admin/
+```
+
+See `:h /\<` and `:h /\>` for more details.