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I'm learning Vim and can't wrap my head around the difference between word and WORD.

I got the following from the Vim manual.

A word consists of a sequence of letters, digits and underscores, or a sequence of other non-blank characters, separated with white space (spaces, tabs, ). This can be changed with the 'iskeyword' option. An empty line is also considered to be a word.

A WORD consists of a sequence of non-blank characters, separated with white space. An empty line is also considered to be a WORD.

I feel word and WORD are just the same thing. They are both a sequence of non-blank chars separated with white spaces. An empty line can be considered as both word and WORD.

Question:
What's the difference between them?
And why/when would someone use WORD over word?

I've already done Google and SO search, but their search-engine interpret WORD as just word so it's like I'm searching for Vim word vs word and of course won't find anything useful.

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  • 4
    This is explained and even illustrated at :h 03.1. Please check the user manual. Commented Apr 8, 2014 at 11:31
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    @Al.G. Glad to know. Thanks! Commented Nov 3, 2015 at 16:52
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    There's ambiguity in English 'or'. What they mean to say is: A word consists of a sequence of (letters OR digits OR underscores), XOR (a sequence of other non-blank characters), separated with white space (spaces, tabs, ). Commented Sep 6, 2018 at 6:28
  • @user1433150 that was helpful thanks. But even with that clarification there is still something confusing. They say: "or a sequence of other non-blank characters, separated with white space (spaces, tabs, )" but if that is true then it simply means any word. So it seems to me that they say "its a smaller set XOR everything". Is that correct? Commented Jul 12, 2020 at 16:11
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    The thing that clicked for me is one line from :h 03.1. It says, A word ends at a non-word character, such as a ".", "-" or ")". But it is not the complete list. In fact anything not in the list returned by set iskeyword? will separated a word (This command returns ascii values range, iskeyword=@,48-57,_,192-255; @ mean all characters). These ".", "-",")" etc will separate word because they are not included in the specified ASCII value range. "_" do not separate word because it is in the specified value range. Commented Aug 11, 2022 at 6:31

6 Answers 6

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  • A WORD is always delimited by whitespace.
  • A word is delimited by non-keyword characters, which are configurable. Whitespace characters aren't keywords, and usually other characters (like ()[],-) aren't, neither. Therefore, a word usually is smaller than a WORD; the word-navigation is more fine-grained.

Example

This "stuff" is not-so difficult! wwww wwwww ww www ww wwwwwwwww " (key)words, delimiters are non-keywords: "-! and whitespace WWWW WWWWWWW WW WWWWWW WWWWWWWWWW " WORDS, delimiters are whitespace only
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9 Comments

Note that you can use the :set iskeyword to change what 'W' does. See :help 'iskeyword' for more information.
Example above is wrong. Double quotes are words too (or part of the one word depending on the 'iskeyword' option). Thus it should be marked with 'w' too. As well as dash.
@Flashrunner That depends on the 'iskeyword' option, as mentioned by Jared Ross. By default, it works as I've written.
:set iskeyword=a-z,A-Z,\",- |This |"stuff" |is |not-so |difficult|! :set iskeyword=a-z,A-Z |This |"|stuff|" |is |not|-|so |difficult|! | - is where 'w' stops. As you can see it is always a word.
Jared Ross's comment is wrong too. iskeyword changes what 'w' does, not 'W'.
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64

To supplement the previous answers... I visualise it like this; WORD is bigger than word, it encompasses more... enter image description here

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1 Comment

Wow, a picture speaks a thousand words! (or was it a thousand WORDS...)
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If I do viw ("select inner word") while my cursor is on app in the following line, it selects app:

app/views/layouts/admin.blade.php

If I do viW (WORD) while my cursor is at the same place, it selects the whole sequence of characters. A WORD includes characters that words, which are like English words, do not, such as asterisks, slashes, parentheses, brackets, etc.

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Last paragraph of the explanation above is unclear. It's missing some crucial words which would have made the difference clear.
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According to Vim documentation ( :h 03.1 )

  • A word ends at a non-word character, such as a ".", "-" or ")".

  • A WORD ends strictly with a white-space. This may not be a word in normal sense, hence the uppercase.

eg. 

 ge b w e <- <- ---> ---> This is-a line, with special/separated/words (and some more). ~ <----- <----- --------------------> -----> gE B W E

If your cursor is at m (of more above)

  • a word would mean 'more' (i.e delimited by ')' non-word character)

  • whereas a WORD would mean 'more).' (i.e. delimited by white-space only)

similarly, If your cursor is at p (of special)

  • a word would mean 'special'
  • whereas a WORD would mean 'special/separated/words'
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2

That's a grammar problem while understanding the definition of "word".

I get stuck at first in Chinese version of this definition (could be miss-translation).

The definition is definitely correct, but it should be read like that:

A word consists of: [(a sequence of letters,digits and underscores), or (a sequence of other non-blank characters)], separated with white space (spaces, tabs, <EOL>).

Whitespace characters were only needed when delimiting two same types of 'word'

More examples in brackets as follow:

(example^&$%^Example) three "word" :(example), (^&$%^) and (Example)

(^&^&^^ &&^&^) two "word" : (^&^&^^) and (&&^&^)

(we're in stackoverflow) five "word" :(we), ('), (re), (in) and (stackoverflow)

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0

Another way to say it. If ur coding, and want to move thru the line stopping at delimiters and things line that "() . [] , :" use w.

if you want to bypass those and just jump to words lets say like a novel or short story has, use W.

For coding the small w is probably the one used most often. Depends where you are in the code.

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