Here’s my PythonScript script, which can output a CSV or TSV file while ensuring that each row has the right number of columns and any instances of the column separator inside a column are handled correctly.

''' ====== SOURCE ====== Requires PythonScript (https://github.com/bruderstein/PythonScript/releases) Based on this question: https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/25962/separate-question-and-answer-about-1000-topics ====== DESCRIPTION ====== Converts a list of questions in the following format into a RFC-4180 compliant CSV file (in other words, a CSV file that is designed to be easy for lots of applications to read) ====== EXAMPLE ====== Assume that you have the text below (between the ------------ lines): ------------ 1.1.1 This is question number 1? "This is answer" 1 with option 1 This, is answer 1, with option 2 1.1.2 This is question number 2? This is answer 2, with "option 1" This is answer 2 with option 2 This is answer 2 with option 3 1.1.3 This is question "number 3"? This is answer 3 with option 1 1.1.4 This is question, number 4? This is answer 4 with option 1 This is answer 4, with option 2 This is answer 4 with "option" 3 This is answer 4 with option 4 ------------ This script will output the following CSV file (between the ------------ lines) ------------ question,option 1,option 2,option 3,option 4 1.1.1 This is question number 1?,"""This is answer"" 1 with option 1","This, is answer 1, with option 2",, 1.1.2 This is question number 2?,"This is answer 2, with ""option 1""",This is answer 2 with option 2,This is answer 2 with option 3, "1.1.3 This is question ""number 3""?",This is answer 3 with option 1,,, "1.1.4 This is question, number 4?",This is answer 4 with option 1,"This is answer 4, with option 2","This is answer 4 with ""option"" 3",This is answer 4 with option 4 ------------ ''' from Npp import editor, notepad import json def convert_q_list_to_csv_main(): # this is set to ',' to make a CSV file. # you could instead use '\t' if you wanted a TSV (tab-separated variables) file SEP = ',' question_lines = [] def to_RFC_4180(s: str, sep: str) -> str: if '"' in s or sep in s or '\r' in s or '\n' in s: return '"' + s.replace('"', '""') + '"' return s editor.research(r"((?'question'^\d+\.\d+\.\d+ +(.*\?)$))(?:\R(?!(?&question)).*)+", lambda m: question_lines.append(m.group(0).splitlines())) print(json.dumps(question_lines, indent=4)) max_n_options = max(len(x) for x in question_lines) header_text = 'question' + SEP + SEP.join('option %d' % ii for ii in range(1, max_n_options)) out_line_texts = [header_text] for question in question_lines: RFC_4180_texts = [] for ii in range(max_n_options): if ii >= len(question): RFC_4180_texts.append('') else: RFC_4180_texts.append(to_RFC_4180(question[ii], SEP)) out_line_texts.append(SEP.join(RFC_4180_texts)) notepad.new() editor.setText('\r\n'.join(out_line_texts)) if __name__ == '__main__': convert_q_list_to_csv_main() del convert_q_list_to_csv_main

Before you ask, I made the odd programmatic choice to define helper functions and global constants inside the main function to avoid polluting the global PythonScript namespace.

@PeterJones said in Curiosity: what apps / services were-built-on / are-currently-maintained-with Notepad++?:

the most important piece of software to be built/maintained (ie, typed) with Notepad++ is of course Notepad++.

And I’m not sure this is even true. :-)
At least when I’m doing development with Notepad++ source code, I use the Visual Studio editor/IDE, not Notepad++.
Not sure what others do (but I would suspect the same).

@Mark-Olson said in page breaks:

you can type  and thus insert the character without needing to use a GUI

If you have to try to remember that, why not instead remember Alt+012 (on numeric keypad) which has worked in any Windows application for literally decades, and requires no plugins?

@PeterJones said in imagecreatefrombmp not recognised:

@Dion-Fitzgerald ,

Please, can this be fixed in future releases.

This Forum is not the feature request location, as explained in our FAQ. Even if you went to github and made a feature request, I am doubtful that anyone would bother to do a PR for a single keyword – but if you found a list of keywords that were missing, someone might be more likely to bother.

However, if it’s important to you to get it highlighted right away, go to Settings > Style Configurator > Language: php > Style: WORD and add imagecreatefrombmp to the User-defined keywords box, then Save & Close, and it will be highlighted for you on that computer, from then on. (The reason Notepad++ has the user-defined keywords option for most languages is that it is impossible for one volunteer developer to know all 80+ languages well enough to know if there’s a few missing keywords or not, and on any language, there maybe any number of lesser-used keywords that would only be important to a subset of users – so the user-defined keyword box is there for the users who care about those holes or want those extra keywords to add them themselves. PHP already has >9000 keywords in Notepad++, so it’s not surprising there is at least one, and likely more, missing – even if there were 100 missing that would only be 1% of the total, which isn’t hugely significant.)

thanks

@terrrann ,

V8.4.6 in October 2022.

See our FAQ: https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/23616/faq-new-change-history-feature

@Coises said in Manual-Indent v Auto-Indent v Smart-Indent:

Not too often mixed within the same file, but from one file to the next, certainly. If it were a menu-accessible, per-tab setting, that wouldn’t be so bad.

There was a proposal recently on the github issues site concerning having the indent settings for the current file shown on the status bar, with the ability to click on it and adjust the settings for the current tab. Of course I can’t find this now; it may have been part of the discussion in the comments of the issue that is bringing us a three-pronged auto-indent setting.

Hello, @joão-borloth, @peterjones, @coises and All,

@joão-borloth, here is my contribution to your problem ! I assume these following statements :

Regarding the searched expression :

The entire searched expression begins and ends each line and contains, at least, three characters

The searched expression begins with two letter characters and ends with a letter character

The characters of the searched expression, from the third one to the last but one, may be any char

Regarding the replacement expression :

The replacement expression contains, at least, two characters

The replacement expression begins with a letter character and ends with a letter character

The characters of the replacement expression, from the second one to the last but one, may be any char

Regarding the case rules :

The case of the first letter of the replacement expression will be the same as the case of the first letter of the searched expression

The case of the last letter of the replacement expression will be the same as the case of the last letter of the searched expression

The case of the all other characters of the replacement expression will be the same as the case of the second letter of the searched expression

First, giving your general template :

Screw SCREW screw ScreW sCREW

I created the same template for two other expressions :

Test TEST test TesT tEST Wonderful time WONDERFUL TIME wonderful time Wonderful timE wONDERFUL TIME

And using the following regex S/R :

SEARCH (?-is)^(?:(\u)|\l)(?:(\u)|\l).*(?:(\u)|\l)$

REPLACE (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l)

I did get the 3 identical blocks, containing the word nail , below :

Nail NAIL nail NaiL nAIL Nail NAIL nail NaiL nAIL Nail NAIL nail NaiL nAIL

So, now, the next problem ( which, indeed, is rather the initial problem ! ) is how to get the replacement text, whatever the text used ?

Again, we’ll use a regex replacement :

SEARCH (?-s)^(.)(.*)(.)$

REPLACE \(\?1\u\1:\l\1\)\(\?2\U\2\E:\L\2\E\)\(\?3\u\3:\l\3\)

For example, given all case syntaxes of the word nail :

nail naiL naIl naIL Nail NaiL NaIl NaIL nAil nAiL nAIl nAIL NAil NAiL NAIl NAIL

You can verify that we always get the same correct result, below :

(?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l)

IF, we extend the use of this regex S/R to other expressions, whatever their case, it does give correct results ! For instance, given this short list, below :

naiL WINDOW An imPRESSive caSTLe bIg Az

We correctly get this OUTPUT :

(?1N:n)(?2AI:ai)(?3L:l) (?1W:w)(?2INDO:indo)(?3W:w) (?1A:a)(?2N IMPRESSIVE CASTL:n impressive castl)(?3E:e) (?1B:b)(?2I:i)(?3G:g) (?1A:a)(?2:)(?3Z:z)

So, the procedure is :

First, given a specific word, which will be the replacement expression, you’ll find the true replacement regex syntax with :

SEARCH (?-s)^(.)(.*)(.)$

REPLACE \(\?1\u\1:\l\1\)\(\?2\U\2\E:\L\2\E\)\(\?3\u\3:\l\3\)

Secondly, with the following regex S/R :

SEARCH (?-is)^(?:(\u)|\l)(?:(\u)|\l).*(?:(\u)|\l)$

REPLACE : The result of the PREVIOUS regex S/R

It would replace any expression with the replacement expression, using our specific case rules !

Two examples :

Expression to change : Screw and expression to replace An impressive castle. Thus :

SEARCH (?-is)^(?:(\u)|\l)(?:(\u)|\l).*(?:(\u)|\l)$

REPLACE (?1A:a)(?2N IMPRESSIVE CASTL:n impressive castl)(?3E:e)

So, from this INPUT text :

Screw SCREW screw ScreW sCREW

We would get this OUTPUT :

An impressive castle AN IMPRESSIVE CASTLE an impressive castle An impressive castlE aN IMPRESSIVE CASTLE

Expression to change : Wonderful time and expression to replace Az. Thus :

SEARCH (?-is)^(?:(\u)|\l)(?:(\u)|\l).*(?:(\u)|\l)$

REPLACE (?1A:a)(?2:)(?3Z:z)

So, from this INPUT text :

Wonderful time WONDERFUL TIME wonderful time Wonderful timE wONDERFUL TIME

we would get this OUTPUT text :

Az AZ az AZ aZ

Best Regards,

guy038

@Coises

Thanks, I keep forgetting about the github 🤦‍♀️ I’ve added to the discussion. It would be great to see this fixed. Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near an adequate enough programmer to contribute.

@Leo ,

I’ve never done anything that gets it “stuck” in the mouse-arrow instead of the mouse-caret.
When your cursor is over the GUI elements, it will be an arrow; when it’s over normal text to be edited, it will be a caret; and when it’s over selected text, it will be an arrow again:

92cbf07c-0054-424e-af92-a9f89669433f-33.png

35194444-ab03-4001-ba1b-7ef44efd96fc-49.png

Does it stay that way if you exit Notepad++ completely and restart the app? Or if you reboot Windows?

If it’s not just something as simple as selected text or restart N++ or reboot, I don’t have any other ideas, so you’ll have to wait for someone else to chime in.

@Lycan-Thrope said in Notepad++ lags for a second:

This is the response from chatgpt for just the first few lines of the question above of the OP:

Thanks for the confirmation. Situation has been resolved (as you can tell from the missing post)

Sorry about the junk.

@Karel-Plíva said in add "X" "Y" "Z" before coordinates:

-19.560 20.000 0.905

Find what: ^(-?\d+.\d+)\s(\d+.\d+)\s(\d+.\d+)
Replace with: X\1 Y\2 Z\3
Regular expression

Cheers.

Tell us the name of the antivirus/anti-malware product you’re using so we can report it as a false positive.

You can also upload your notepad++.exe to virustotal and paste the result link here.

A is 1000% better! As the original bug whisperer, I hereby invoke my “First Reporter Privilege” and decree that my vote should count as 10! 🎉✨

Sorry for the problem caused by the political edition, again.

@guy038 said in Getting "Invalid Regular Expression" for an extremely simple expression:

At this point, I tried to select all the zones around these 11 matches in a small new file, that I named Matches.txt. Then, using the Mark dialog with (?:[^,]*,){13}[\u\l], against this small file, it does return 10 matches ( not 11 as explained in the next post ! )

However, it is distressing to note that the equivalent regex (?:.*?,){13}[\u\l] still fails against this tiny Matches.txt file, of only 16,138 bytes :-((

Unfortunately, it’s quite certain that cases, like that one, may arise when using most of the available regex engines !

There are two ways an implementation can look at a regex:

A regex is a definition of matching character strings. A regex is a procedure for matching character strings.

From the first perspective, your two expressions are equivalent: they specify the same strings as matches. From the second perspective, they are not: they specify different procedures for finding strings that match.

No one has found a way to implement back references using method 1. Once your regular expression syntax includes the ability to use back references, you are stuck with the procedural interpretation.

There are other features of PERL-compatible regular expressions that present problems, but back references are the killer.

I’m speculating here, but I think once you include any back reference in an expression, it breaks the ability to process any part of the expression that occurs before the back reference as a definition rather than a procedure. (I’m not certain of that. I have no doubt someone does know the answer to that… but that someone isn’t me.)

So I think you’ll find all those more efficient regular expression engines implement a severely restricted syntax for regular expressions which omits features none of us would like to do without (particularly, back references).

What I’ve also speculated is that perhaps a regular expression engine could include two engines: one which processes using the ”definition” approach for expressions to which it is applicable, and one which uses the “procedural” approach for the remaining expressions. I don’t know if any do that now.

@Mark-Johnson said in Lost my R style settings with 8.6.7 update.:

Select Theme: DarkModeDefault

Then saving stylers.xml will not be enough for you. As I said, each theme stores its style-configurator settings separately. If you want to save customizations to DarkModeDefault, then you would have to backup %AppData%\Notepad++\themes\DarkModeDefault.xml (or, for other users who aren’t using AppData, in the appropriate Config File Location, as linked above)

As a few lines of PythonScript, it could be a simple as:

num1 = int(editor.getTextRange(editor.getSelectionNStart(0), editor.getSelectionNEnd(0)).strip()) num2 = int(editor.getTextRange(editor.getSelectionNStart(1), editor.getSelectionNEnd(1)).strip()) print(num1 - num2)

But of course there are always concerns about error checking (what if there aren’t two selections…what if selected text isn’t numeric…etc) and then also is integer math sufficient, or is floating point wanted…

@Coises
I can’t Thank-You enough for that “hold my hand” response. It kind of worked the first time. I made an alteration based on your descriptions and it worked perfectly the second time.
Now I fine tune!
Wow, I opened a can of worms with this project!
Thanks so much,
Kevin Korotev

@Arthur-Schwarez ,

Settings > Style Configurator > Language: Global Styles > Style: Default Style > Font Style > Font Size does change the font size:

before after 5315cda3-ac6e-43ab-9d32-868069c62d85-image.png 2977b621-28aa-455c-9876-9dc19f5952a6-image.png

Since your breadcrumb trail was missing the Style: column entry, I have to assume you were trying to change the Style: Global override without having the checkbox marked; but don’t ever change Global Override (<jediMindTrick>This is not the setting you are looking for</jediMindTrick>). As I showed, it’s the Style: Default Style that you want to change in order to get it to be properly inherited throughout your theme.

See the User Manual’s Global Styles section for more on the difference between Style: Global override and Style: Default Style

@Alan-Kilborn said in See if notepad++ meets some of my needs:

@wonkawilly
probably not worth discussing further…

I also agree