runtime(doc): Adapt fuzzy doc to reflect 'fzy' algorithm
Commit:
https://github.com/vim/vim/commit/c93a2b332734086ef94c4abf407f584e1e41bd55
Author: Girish Palya <giris...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed Aug 13 21:53:53 2025 +0200
runtime(doc): Adapt fuzzy doc to reflect 'fzy' algorithm
closes: https://github.com/vim/vim/issues/17988
Signed-off-by: Girish Palya <giris...@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brabandt <c...@256bit.org>
diff --git a/runtime/doc/pattern.txt b/runtime/doc/pattern.txt
index 02668a047..414b0f97d 100644
--- a/runtime/doc/pattern.txt
+++ b/runtime/doc/pattern.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-*pattern.txt* For Vim version 9.1. Last change: 2025 Aug 12
+*pattern.txt* For Vim version 9.1. Last change: 2025 Aug 13
VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar
@@ -1501,37 +1501,51 @@ Finally, these constructs are unique to Perl:
==============================================================================
11. Fuzzy matching *fuzzy-matching*
-Fuzzy matching refers to matching strings using a non-exact search string.
-Fuzzy matching will match a string, if all the characters in the search string
-are present anywhere in the string in the same order. Case is ignored. In a
-matched string, other characters can be present between two consecutive
-characters in the search string. If the search string has multiple words, then
-each word is matched separately. So the words in the search string can be
-present in any order in a string.
+Fuzzy matching scores how well a string matches a pattern when the pattern
+characters appear in order but not necessarily contiguously.
-Vim uses the same improved algorithm as the fzy project:
+Example: >
+ Pattern: "vim"
+ Candidates: "vim" -> perfect
+ "vimeo" -> good (v i m)
+ "voice mail" -> weaker (v _ i _ _ _ m)
+ "vintage" -> no match (no "m")
+<
+If the search string has multiple words, each word is matched separately and
+may appear in any order in the candidate. For example "get pat" matches
+"GetPattern", "PatternGet", "getPattern", "patGetter", "getSomePattern",
+"MatchpatternGet", etc.
+
+The 'ignorecase' and 'smartcase' options do not apply, case is ignored if the
+pattern is all lower case.
+
+Vim's implementation is based on the algorithm from the fzy project:
https://github.com/jhawthorn/fzy
-Fuzzy matching assigns a score for each matched string based on the following
-criteria:
- - The number of sequentially matching characters.
- - The number of characters (distance) between two consecutive matching
- characters.
- - Matches at the beginning of a word
- - Matches at a camel case character (e.g. Case in CamelCase)
- - Matches after a path separator or a hyphen.
- - The number of unmatched characters in a string.
- - A full/exact match is preferred.
-The matching string with the highest score is returned first.
-
-For example, when you search for the "get pat" string using fuzzy matching, it
-will match the strings "GetPattern", "PatternGet", "getPattern", "patGetter",
-"getSomePattern", "MatchpatternGet" etc.
-
-The functions |matchfuzzy()| and |matchfuzzypos()| can be used to fuzzy search
-a string in a List of strings. The matchfuzzy() function returns a List of
-matching strings. The matchfuzzypos() functions returns the List of matches,
-the matching positions and the fuzzy match scores.
+It uses dynamic programming to compute an optimal score for a given pattern
+and candidate.
+
+The algorithm works in two stages:
+
+1. Forward pass
+ Scan the candidate left to right, tracking the best score for each
+ pattern position. Matches score higher when they occur at the start
+ of the candidate, the start of a word (space, underscore, dash,
+ camelCase), or directly after the previous match.
+
+2. Backward pass
+ Start from the best-scoring end position and step back to find match
+ positions, ensuring the alignment is optimal.
+
+Vim extends the original algorithm to support multibyte codepoints, allowing
+correct matching for UTF-8 and other encodings.
+
+Time complexity is O(pattern * candidate). Memory usage is proportional
+to the same.
+
+The |matchfuzzy()| and |matchfuzzypos()| functions perform fuzzy searching in
+a List of strings. |matchfuzzy()| returns the matching strings, while
+|matchfuzzypos()| returns the matches along with their positions and scores.
The "f" flag of `:vimgrep` enables fuzzy matching.
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