Two other examples regarding this generic regex ! In these ones, we’ll even restrict the replacements to each concerned zone before a # character !

Paste the text below in a new tab :

<iden>123456 (START)</iden> <name>Case_1</name> <descrip>This is a (short) text to (easily) see the results (of the modifications)# (12345) test (67890)</descrip> <param>val (250)</param> <iden>123456</iden> <name>Case_2</name> <descrip>And the (obvious) changes occur only in (the) "descrip" tag # Parentheses (Yeaah) OK</descrip> <param>val (500)</param> <iden>123456 (END)</iden> <name>Case_3</name> <descrip>All (the) other tags are (just) untouched #(This is) the end (of the test)</descrip> <param>val (999)</param>

In this first example, of single-line <descrip> tags , two solutions are possible :

Use the complete generic regex (?-si:BSR|(?!\A)\G)(?s-i:(?!ESR).)*?\K(?-si:FR) where ESR = # which leads to the functional S/R :

SEARCH (?-s)(?-i:<descrip>|(?!\A)\G)((?!#).)*?\K(?:\x20\(.+?\))

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

=> This time, in addition to only replace in each <descrip>..........</descrip> zone, NO replacement will occur after the # character of each <descrip> tag !

Use the simplified solution and add a ESR condition at the end of the regex, giving this generic variant (?-s)(?-i:BSR|(?!\A)\G).*?\K(?-i:FR)(?=ESR)

SEARCH (?-s)(?-i:<descrip>|(?!\A)\G).*?\K(?:\x20\(.+?\))(?=.*#)

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

However, this other solution needs that all the <descrip> tags contains a comment zone with a # char

Now, paste this other text below in a new tab :

<val>37--001</val> <text>This-is -a--very---< # Dashes - - - OK/text> <pos>4-1234</pos> <val>37--002</val> <text>-small----#---example</text> <pos>9-0012</pos> <val>37--003</val> <text>-of-a-text- which-</text> <pos>1-9999</pos> <val>37--004</val> <text>need -to-be- modi fied # but - not - there</text> <pos>0-0000</pos>

This second example is a multi-lines replacement, in each <text>.............</text> zone only and also limited to the part before a # char which can be present or not

Of course, we’ll have to use the complete generic regex (?-si:BSR|(?!\A)\G)(?s-i:(?!ESR).)*?\K(?-si:FR) but, instead of a single (?!ESR), we’ll have to use this variant :

(?-si:BSR|(?!\A)\G)(?s-i:(?!ESR_1)(?!ESR_2).)*?\K(?-si:FR)

So, the functional regex S/R becomes :

SEARCH (?-si:<text>|(?!\A)\G)(?s-i:(?!</text>)(?!#).)*?\K-+

REPLACE \x20

=> ONLY IF a sequence of dashes is located in a <text>..........</text> zone AND, moreover, before a possible # char, it will be replaced with a single space character

As you can verify, the third multi-lines <text>.............</text> zone does not contain any # char. Thus, all dash characters, of that <Text> tag, are replaced with a single space char !

Remainder :

You must use, at least, the v7.9.1 N++ release, so that the \A assertion is correctly handled

Move to the very beginning of file, before any Find Next sequence or Replace All operation

Do not click on the step-by-step Replace button

@peterjones ,
Thank you for this synopsis. This will take a little while to digest, but at least there is a succinct description we neophytes can come and learn the way you explain things in detail. Thanks again.

@cinetica-constructiva ,

Since you claim you have Notepad++ v8.2 (showing us ?-menu’s Debug Info would give us more to go on), then I can ask: Did you leave the nppLogNulContentCorruptionIssue.xml in the Notepad++ installation folder? If so, did Notepad++ create nppLogNulContentCorruptionIssue.log, either in %AppData%\Notepad++ (or the Notepad++-in-Wine-in-Ubuntu equivalent) or in the Notepad++ installation folder. Despite using it in an unsupported environment, that logfile may contain useful information.

pasteSpecial.pl - v2.1

Updates:

Fix “bitmap” bug (if a bitmap was in the clipboard, trying to preview would cause script to crash)

Requirements:

Perl Install “PerlScript” module

Usage

Notepad++ menu: Run > Run: "c:\path\to\perl.exe" "c:\path\to\pasteSpecial.pl" #!/usr/bin/env perl ################################################ # PasteSpecial for Notepad++ # List formats currently on the clipboard # Allows you to choose one of those formats # Will paste the selected type (UTF8-encoded) # at the current location in the active file ################################################ # HISTORY # v0.1: STDIN-based choice # v1.0: DialogBox choice # v2.0: Add REFRESH button to update the ListBox # Defaults to selecting/displaying the first Clipboard variant # Persist checkbox allows dialog to stay open for multiple pastes # v2.1: Fix the "bitmap" bug (having bitmaps is clipboard caused crash) ################################################ use 5.010; use warnings; use strict; use Win32::Clipboard; use Win32::GUI; use Win32::GUI::Constants qw/CW_USEDEFAULT/; use Encode; use Win32::Mechanize::NotepadPlusPlus 0.004 qw/:main/; # this works even with v0.004, even without bugfix for prompt() our $VERSION = 'v2.1'; BEGIN { binmode STDERR, ':utf8'; binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'; } my %map = ( CF_TEXT() => 'CF_TEXT', CF_BITMAP() => 'CF_BITMAP', CF_METAFILEPICT() => 'CF_METAFILEPICT', CF_SYLK() => 'CF_SYLK', CF_DIF() => 'CF_DIF', CF_TIFF() => 'CF_TIFF', CF_OEMTEXT() => 'CF_OEMTEXT', CF_DIB() => 'CF_DIB', CF_PALETTE() => 'CF_PALETTE', CF_PENDATA() => 'CF_PENDATA', CF_RIFF() => 'CF_RIFF', CF_WAVE() => 'CF_WAVE', CF_UNICODETEXT() => 'CF_UNICODETEXT', CF_ENHMETAFILE() => 'CF_ENHMETAFILE', CF_HDROP() => 'CF_HDROP', CF_LOCALE() => 'CF_LOCALE', ); my %rmap; @rmap{values %map} = keys %map; my $CLIP = Win32::Clipboard; my $answer = runDialog(); #editor->addText(Encode::encode("UTF8", $answer)) if defined $answer; #v1.3: moved to the PASTE button, below exit; sub formats { my @f = $CLIP->EnumFormats(); foreach my $format (sort {$a <=> $b} @f) { $map{$format} //= $CLIP->GetFormatName($format) // '<unknown>'; $rmap{ $map{$format} } = $format; } return @f; } sub runDialog { my $clipboard; my $persist = 1; my $dlg = Win32::GUI::Window->new( -title => sprintf('Notepad++ Paste Special %s', $VERSION), -left => CW_USEDEFAULT, -top => CW_USEDEFAULT, -size => [580,300], -resizable => 0, -maximizebox => 0, -hashelp => 0, -dialogui => 1, ); my $icon = Win32::GUI::Icon->new(100); # v1.1: change the icon $dlg->SetIcon($icon) if defined $icon; my $update_preview = sub { my $self = shift // return -1; my $value = $self->GetText($self->GetCurSel()); my $f=$rmap{$value}; $clipboard = $CLIP->IsBitmap() ? $CLIP->GetBitmap() : $CLIP->IsFiles() ? ($CLIP->GetFiles())[0] : $CLIP->GetAs($f); $clipboard = Encode::decode('UTF16-LE', $clipboard) if $f == CF_UNICODETEXT(); (my $preview = $clipboard) =~ s/([^\x20-\x7F\r\n])/sprintf '\x{%02X}', ord $1/ge; $preview =~ s/\R/\r\n/g; $preview = substr($preview,0,297)."..." if length($preview)>300; $self->GetParent()->PREVIEW->Text( $preview ); return 1; }; my $lb = $dlg->AddListbox( -name => 'LB', -pos => [10,10], -size => [230, $dlg->ScaleHeight()-10], -vscroll => 1, -onSelChange => $update_preview, # v1.2: externalize this callback so it can be run from elsewhere ); my $refresh_formats = sub { my $lb = $dlg->LB; my $selected_idx = $lb->GetCurSel() // 0; my $selected_txt = ((0<=$selected_idx) && ($selected_idx < $lb->Count)) ? $lb->GetText($selected_idx) : ''; $lb->RemoveItem(0) while $lb->Count; $lb->Add( @map{ sort {$a<=>$b} formats() } ); my $new_idx = $selected_txt ? $lb->FindStringExact($selected_txt) : undef; $new_idx = undef unless defined($new_idx) && (0 <= $new_idx) && ($new_idx < $lb->Count); $lb->Select( $new_idx//0 ); $update_preview->( $lb ); }; my $button_top = $dlg->LB->Top()+$dlg->LB->Height()-25; $dlg->AddButton( # v1.2: add this button -name => 'REFRESH', -text => 'Refresh', -size => [80,25], -left => $dlg->ScaleWidth()-90*3, -top => $button_top, -onClick => sub{ $refresh_formats->(); 1; }, ); $dlg->AddButton( -name => 'OK', -text => 'Paste', -size => [80,25], -left => $dlg->ScaleWidth()-90*2, -top => $button_top, -onClick => sub{ # v1.3: allow to persist after paste: TODO: move the editor->addText here editor->addText( Encode::encode("UTF8", $clipboard) ) if defined $clipboard; return $persist ? 1 : -1; }, ); $dlg->AddButton( -name => 'CANCEL', -text => 'Cancel', -size => [80,25], -left => $dlg->ScaleWidth()-90*1, -top => $button_top, -onClick => sub{ $clipboard=undef; -1; }, ); $dlg->AddGroupbox( -name => 'GB', -title => 'Preview', -pos => [250,10], -size => [$dlg->ScaleWidth()-260, $button_top-20], ); $dlg->AddLabel( -name => 'PREVIEW', -left => $dlg->GB->Left()+10, -top => $dlg->GB->Top()+20, -width => $dlg->GB->ScaleWidth()-20, -height => $dlg->GB->ScaleHeight()-40, ); $dlg->AddCheckbox( -name => 'CB', -text => 'Persist', -pos => [$dlg->GB->Left(), $button_top], -onClick => sub { $persist = !$persist; 1; }, ); $dlg->CB->SetCheck($persist); $refresh_formats->(); $dlg->Show(); Win32::GUI::Dialog(); return $clipboard; }

@Paul-Whaley

What does this part of the Find dialog look like for you?:

c95f467e-7e0a-4aa1-8f6d-a352df8601d8-image.png

Seems like you want Normal but you probably have Regular expression set ??

T-This is BEAUTIFUL ( ♡∀♡)

@yoyomonem

If that’s an announcement of a new OS from Microsoft, I think you missed the mark by almost a couple of decades. And it’s off-topic for a Notepad++ forum.

One question: WHY?

@A-Shrinivas-Rao said in Search issue:

f I need to go up I need to check Backward direction or vice versa.

Have you tried 2-button find mode?

Turn it on with this, by ticking the box with the speech bubble:

36cfa5b3-f961-4b4a-8186-c513923c9054-image.png

And it will then look like this:

6e20872c-60a3-4ca5-b349-49c31f09978f-image.png

And you can then forget the Backward direction checkbox is even there.

Alternatively, with the keyboard, Enter will search forwards and Shift+Enter will search backwards.

Plenty of options so your time isn’t wasted. :-)

@Alan-Kilborn I use run in chrome.

Try “LongPathTool program” that is best solution.

From my point of view, I was wondering how Search on Internet worked versus the Launch in Chrome, Launch in Firefox etc shown in the default shortcuts.xml. I had long copied the examples in shortcuts.xml for browser shortcuts. But, I was then forced to modify shortcuts.xml when I switched my default browser. Those examples always explicitly gave a browser (due to Web development). And I followed that convention. Search on Internet followed the default browser.

I first tried searching in the NPP sources. But I can’t read C++ well enough.

I happened on Launch in Web browser · Issue #472 where Mr. Ho simply says “It’s been done.” I wasn’t sure what that could mean and then found the answer I linked to in my original post.

I typically disable clickable links as a first customization. So, it made sense to me that clickable links was the implied solution.

My muscle memory is set to the shortcuts I’ve developed. So, I kept experimenting with the examples in shortcuts.xml until I realized <command /> was just some escaped wrapper for a plain Run prompt. I had previously made the leap to use Start-Process to invoke URLs from the shell. So, I tried directly invoking a URL from NPP and it worked.

I did not realize there had been a recent discussion. My searches had centered around “default Web browser” thus the GitHub issue. I don’t remember seeing this other discussion.

Now, even my PowerShell function has encoding and a fixed protocol. – Since this literally executes whatever is selected, I threw in annoying warnings.

@Дмитрий-Ясинский

Please see here: https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/15958/faq-desk-you-ve-asked-your-question-in-the-wrong-place

This should get you started: https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/15958/faq-desk-you-ve-asked-your-question-in-the-wrong-place

@Javier-Sánchez

See https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

with the fact that the developers, apparently don’t take a glance here

I’m sure some do and some don’t.

I want to contribute with the syntax ruling and look of a very well known programming language (which I’d mention later on) in a very well known hardware (which I’d mention later). Why mention later? Well, when I get the least hint, I’ll do that.

“which I’d mention later”? With a statement like that, I’m sure absolutely no one cares. Good luck with the results to your "insist"ing.

@Alan-Kilborn

You are right, the way multi-editing is implemented currently is not very useful - to much hassle to place the cursor at multiple locations and you could easily miss one location.

But with the new Scintilla commands SCI_MULTIPLESELECTADDNEXT and SCI_MULTIPLESELECTADDEACH we got the missing features to enjoy the power of multi-editing. If you are sure you want to overtype all occurences of a certain string send SCI_MULTIPLESELECTADDEACH. If you know that the string only occurs in a few locations near by the cursor (e.g. an if..else...endif block) send SCI_MULTIPLESELECTADDNEXT multiple times. Of course a scripting plugin is needed to be able to send these commands to Scintilla.

In this comment @dail posted some Lua code to emulate SCI_MULTIPLESELECTADDNEXT in Notepad++ versions prior to v7.7 (which introduced the Scintilla version necessary for the two commands mentioned above). I was able to modify it to create an emulator for SCI_MULTIPLESELECTADDEACH as well (maybe I found that code somewhere, too), here are the two functions:

npp.AddShortcut("Selection Add Next", "", function() -- From SciTEBase.cxx local flags = SCFIND_WHOLEWORD -- can use 0 editor:SetTargetRange(0, editor.TextLength) editor.SearchFlags = flags -- From Editor.cxx if editor.SelectionEmpty or not editor.MultipleSelection then local startWord = editor:WordStartPosition(editor.CurrentPos, true) local endWord = editor:WordEndPosition(startWord, true) editor:SetSelection(startWord, endWord) else local i = editor.MainSelection local s = editor:textrange(editor.SelectionNStart[i], editor.SelectionNEnd[i]) local searchRanges = {{editor.SelectionNEnd[i], editor.TargetEnd}, {editor.TargetStart, editor.SelectionNStart[i]}} for _, range in pairs(searchRanges) do editor:SetTargetRange(range[1], range[2]) if editor:SearchInTarget(s) ~= -1 then editor:AddSelection(editor.TargetStart, editor.TargetEnd) -- To scroll main selection in sight editor:ScrollRange(editor.TargetStart, editor.TargetEnd) break end end end -- To turn on Notepad++ multi select markers editor:LineScroll(0, 1) editor:LineScroll(0, -1) end) npp.AddShortcut("Selection Add All", "", function() local flags = SCFIND_WHOLEWORD -- can use 0 local startWord = -1 local endWord = -1 local s = "" editor.SearchFlags = flags if editor.SelectionEmpty or not editor.MultipleSelection then startWord = editor:WordStartPosition(editor.CurrentPos, true) endWord = editor:WordEndPosition(startWord, true) editor:SetSelection(startWord, endWord) else local i = editor.MainSelection startWord = editor.SelectionNStart[i] endWord = editor.SelectionNEnd[i] end s = editor:textrange(startWord, endWord) while true do editor:SetTargetRange(0, editor.TextLength) local i = editor.MainSelection local searchRanges = {{editor.SelectionNEnd[i], editor.TargetEnd}, {editor.TargetStart, editor.SelectionNStart[i]}} local itemFound = false for _, range in pairs(searchRanges) do editor:SetTargetRange(range[1], range[2]) if editor:SearchInTarget(s) ~= -1 then editor:AddSelection(editor.TargetStart, editor.TargetEnd) itemFound = true break end end if editor.TargetStart == startWord and editor.TargetEnd == endWord or not itemFound then break end end -- To turn on Notepad++ multi select markers editor:LineScroll(0, 1) editor:LineScroll(0, -1) end)

@richard-turner

Your posting in this thread is OK, but your profile points in the other direction. Tread lightly.

Hello @prahlad-makwana4145, @ekopalypse and All,

Welcome to the N++ Community !

Actually, in Extended mode, in addition to the search of standard characters and the 5 specific characters, below :

Character Syntax ---------------- ----------- Tabulation \t New Line \n Carriage Return \r Backslash \\ Null \0 ---------------- -----------

Within an Unicode encoding file, a particular character, of code-point U+00xx, with xx between 00 and ff, can be found with one of the four syntaxes below :

Type From To Character Range ------------ ----------- ----------- ----------------- Decimal \d000 \d255 [0-9] Octal \o000 \o377 [0-7] Binary \b00000000 \b11111111 [0-1] Hexadecimal \x00 \xFF [0-9A-F] ------------ ----------- ----------- -----------------

However, within an ANSI encoded file, an unicode character, of code-point U+00xx can be found ONLY IF xx belongs to the range [00-7F] OR to the range [A0-FF]. When xx lies between 80 and 9F, it generally searches for the question mark ( ? ) as it refers to an Unicode char, whose code-point is not handled by the ANSI encoding ! Only, the 5 characters U+0081, U+008D, U+008F, U+0090 and U+009D, without any glyph, are correctly searched !

Notes :

The Extended search mode, as well as the Regular expression one, cannot be used for searching individual bytes of an UTF-8 or UCS-2 encoded character !

The replacement zone, in Extended mode, may contain any char, except for the NUL char ( \0 )

When using the Extended mode, especially when searching for letters, it is advisable to tick the Match case option

Reminder : In the Normal and Extended search mode, it’s best to NOT tick the Match whole word only option, especially when the searched string begins and/or ends with a NON-word character !

So, for instance, with the Match case option ticked, the Match whole word only option UN-ticked and the Extended [\n, \r, \t, \0, \x...) search mode selected :

If you search for the uppercase letter A, you can choose, either, the syntax \d065 or \o101 or \b1000001 or \x41

And if you look for the character, with decimal ASCII code 201 ( É ), type in, either, the syntax \d201 or \o311 or \b11001001 or \xC9

Best Regards,

guy038

P.S. :

Personally, I think that the only advantage of using the Extended mode is when you want to use the \dxxx syntax, where xxx represents the decimal code of the character :

Between 000 and 255 ( so in range U+0000 - U+00FF) within a UTF-8 or UCS-2 encoded file

Between 000 and 127 or between 160 and 255 ( so in ranges U+0000 - U+007F or U+00A0 - U+00FF ) within an ANSI file

In all other cases, just prefer the Regular expression search mode ;-))