Hello @dshuman52, @alan-kilborn and All,
@dshuman52, Here is a method which could help you ! It works whatever the current language as it’s a recursive regular expression looking for well-balanced ( .... ) blocks, containing possible juxtaposed / nested other ( .... ) blocks !
SEARCH \((?:[^()]++|(?0))*\) ( Select the Regular expression search mode )
Notes :
From current location of the caret, this regex selects, automatically, the next longest well balanced ( .... ) block
If you prefer to get the ending parenthesis, only, simply change this regex as below :
SEARCH \((?:[^()]++|(?0))*\K\)
To explain this regex, the best is to use the free-spacing mode, which allows comments in regexes :
(?x) # FREE-SPACING mode \( # STARTING parenthesis (?: # Start of the NON-CAPTURING group [^()]++ # Any NON-NULL ATOMIC range of ALLOWED characters | # OR (?0) # A RECURSION, using the WHOLE regex pattern ( group #0 ) )* # End of the NON-CAPTURING group, repeated 0 or MORE times # \K # DELETE the initial '#' character, of that line, to match the ENDING parenthesis, ONLY \) # ENDING parenthesisTry this regex against your text, below :
@ECHO ON REM LINKdir.bat REM REM %1 = A99LINK REM %2 = A99TARGET REM %3 = A99FILTER REM SET A99LINK=%~1 SET A99TARGET=%~2 SET A99FILTER=%~3 REM REM make directories and link files REM PUSHD %A99TARGET:~0,-1% REM REM make directories FOR %%F IN (DIR /ad /b) DO ( SET %A99FILE%=%%F IF %A99FILE:~0,1%!='.' ( MKDIR %A99LINK%%A99FILE% %A01TESTbatPATH%LINKdir.bat ^ %A99LINK%%A99FILE% ^ %A99TARGET%%A99FILE% ) ) REM REM link files REM FOR %%T IN (%A99FILTER%) DO ( FOR %%F IN (DIR /a-d /b *.%%T) DO ( SET %A99FILE%=%%F IF %A99FILE:~0,1%!='.' ( MKLINK /h %A99LINK%%A99FILE% ^ %A99TARGET%%A99FILE% ) ) ) POPDNotes :
Place the caret at different locations, of this batch file
Then do the search hitting, several times, the F3 shortcut
Important :
Each time that a well-balanced ( .... ) block is selected :
An hit on the Left Arrow key moves the caret right before the ( starting parenthesis
An hit on the Right Arrow key moves the caret right after the ) ending parenthesis
The nice thing is that, when you hit the shift + F3 shortcut, it gets the inner ( ... ) block, closed to the end of the outer ( ... ) block !
Try also, with your first sample text :
DO %%F IN (z y x) DO ( IF %%F==x ( ECHO ‘x’ ) ELSE ( IF %%F==y ( ECHO ^ ‘y’ ) ELSE ( IF %%F==z ( ECHO ‘z’ ) ) ) )Best Regards,
guy038
P.S. :
In batch files , the & ampersand, the | vertical line and the ( and ) parentheses are special chars. So, they must be preceded with the escape character ^ or embedded inside double quotes.
Thus, here’s a more elaborate version, where we suppose that the ^ symbol is the default escape character and any character, preceded with a ^ symbol, is just considered as a literal chars, including the syntaxes ^( and ^) !
(?x) # FREE-SPACING mode (?<!\\) # NEXT character is NOT PRECEDED with a '\' symbol ( LOOK-BEHIND condition ) \( # STARTING parenthesis (?: # Start of the 1st NON-CAPTURING group (?: # Start of the 2nd NON-CAPTURING group \^ [()] # STRINGS '^(' or '^)' are supposed to be ALLOWED characters | # OR [^()] # Any ALLOWED character, even EOL ones, DIFFERENT of the PARENTHESES '(' and ')' )++ # End of the 2nd NON-CAPTURING group ( NON-NULL ATOMIC range of ALLOWED characters ) | # OR (?0) # A RECURSION, using the WHOLE regex pattern ( group #0 ) )* # End of the 1st NON-CAPTURING group, repeated 0 or MORE times (?<!\\) # NEXT character is NOT PREDECED with a '\' symbol ( LOOK-BEHIND condition ) \) # ENDING parenthesisHere is its shortest syntax :
SEARCH (?x)(?<!\\)\((?:(?:\^[()]|[^()])|(?0))*(?<!\\)\)
Test it against this sample text :
DO %%F IN (z y x) DO ( IF %%F==x ( ECHO ‘x’ ^( ) ELSE ( IF %%F==y ( ECHO ^ ‘y’ ) ELSE ( IF %%F==z ( ECHO ‘z’ ) ) ^) ) )
