Search in vim for string starting and ending with a pattern

Building on the :s/pattern/replacement/gc idea from Samus_ (which seems to be the simplest way to ensure correct operation when pattern is contained within the replacement string), to replace the 2nd through 4th occurrences on a single line:

:call feedkeys("nyyyq") | s/pat/string/gc

feedkeys() is a function that stuffs the input string into the keyboard input queue. The point is to do the counting upfront so you don't have to worry about losing count or getting interrupted.

For a more general case, to replace the Mth through Nth occurrences on a single line for N greater than or equal to a very large M:

:call feedkeys(repeat("n", M-1) . repeat("y", N-M+1) . "q") | s/pat/string/gc

Replace M and N with the values you want (you can even let vim do the trivial mental arithmetic if you don't want to do it yourself). Note that . is VimL's string concatenation operator. Obviously this only saves keystrokes for large M. If you use this functionality frequently, it may save you time to put the above in a custom command or function of some sort, as it is quite a bit to type.

The issue is caused by the sensible plugin:line 93. :help t_Co

" Allow color schemes to do bright colors without forcing bold.
if &t_Co == 8 && $TERM !~# '^linux'
  set t_Co=16  " << --- Causes hickup
endif

If you run vim in verbose log mode (vim -V15load_log.vim) – and search for t_Co= and RedundantSpaces you'll see that sensible is actually parsed after your appearance.vim file.

Quick fix would be to either comment out that section of the code and add it to your .vimrc, but as you link to git repositories that is perhaps not what you want.

A different approach would be to move it out of the bundledirectory and add it as a separate source line in your vimrc, before your glob loop.

I.e.:

  source ~/.vim/hacks/vim-sensible/plugin/sensible.vim

  for f in split(glob ...

Another way would be to load custom highlight on BufLoad.

Etc. …