A05 currently says: The first space in
/[:w foo bar]/ matches \s* before "foo". That's usually what you want, but if it's not what you want, you have a little problem. Unfortunately you can't just say: /[:wfoo bar]/ That won't work because it'll look for the :wfoo modifier. However, there are several ways to get the effect you want: /[:w()foo bar]/ /[:w[]foo bar]/ /[:w\bfoo bar]/ /[:w::foo bar]/ I think this was discussed before, but I've lost the reference, so here's my question: do the parens () and brackets [] have the same meaning in this context, or is there some difference between them that I'm overlooking? Also, it seems sort of odd to me that ":w()" is the same as ":w(1)" and ":w" here -- I would've expected empty parens to connote a null, undef, zero, or otherwise false value. Is it generally true that :xyz() as an adverb will be the same as :xyz(1)...? (I know that :xyz is the same as :xyz(1), but I'm curious about :xyz() ). Pm