vim find a line that has this but not that

To find lines which have “This” and “NotThat” it is as simple as:

:g/This\&\(.*NotThat\)\@!

Let’s dive into each piece of this in a little more detail…

The :g is a way to list out all matches in a file. For instance to see all lines listed out which match “This” you could use:

:g/This

Furthermore, if you wanted lines that contained both “This” and “That” then you could use:

:g/This\&\(.*That\)

The reason why the .* is needed is that it looks for the conjoined match (the ampersand) from the previous match. You will notice that the highlighting/match will select the range, i.e.

we use brackets to show the match from [This to That] nothing else matches

By adding the \@! we tell vim to negate that term and viola we are search for “This” and not “That” e.g.

:g/This\&\(.*That\)\@!

Would match the second line, but not the first:

we use brackets to show the match from This to That nothing else matches
on this line we only have This and thus it will match

Notice that only the second line will match.