Regex search lines add quotes

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title: 'Regex Search Lines Add Quotes'
date: '2020-01-03T09:21:50-06:00'
status: publish
permalink: /regex-search-lines-add-quotes
author: admin
excerpt: ''
type: post
id: 1445
category:
    - regex
tag: []
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Regex to search a whole file and if the line contains the search word, add beginning and ending quotes. I in this case doing it vi(m).

This works to add beginning and ending quotes to ALL lines in the file

```bash :%s/^(.*)$/\1/ ````

or simpler

```bash :%s/.*/& ````

Explanation:

By default, a pattern is interpreted as the largest possible match, so .* is interpreted as the whole line, with no need for ^ and $. And while (…) can be useful in selecting a part of a pattern, it is not needed for the whole pattern, which is represented by & in the substitution. And the final / in a search or substitution is not needed unless something else follows

However we do NOT want all lines in the file only the lines containing the search word.

This works. I am not sure if this is reliable without using anchors ^ and $ but it seems to work in my limited test.

```bash :%s/.mysearchword./& ````