Hello, @dario-de-judicibus, and All,

No problem with regular expressions ;-))

So :

Open the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )

Select the Regular expression search mode

Tick, if necessary, the Wrap around option

SEARCH (?=[^<>]+?<)(?:(\x{201c})|\x{201d})

REPLACE &(?1l:r)dquo;

Click once, on the Replace All button or several times, on the Replace button

Notes :

The main part (?:(\x{201c})|\x{201d}), is a non-capturing group with an alternative, |, which looks for, either :

The LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK, of Unicode value 201c, stored as group 1, due to the embedded parentheses

The RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK, of Unicode value 201d

But ONLY IF the condition of the positive look-ahead structure is TRUE. That is to say if the regex [^<>]+?< can be matched at the current position of the regex engine

This condition represents the shortest range of characters different from the two chars < and >, ending with the < character. Note that the ending < character may, either, introduce an other tag or close the present open tag, with the syntax </

In replacement, the left or right double quotation mark is, then, changed into :

An ampersand character &. Then,

If the \x{201c} character has been found, in the correct area, the group 1 is defined => a l letter follows

If the \x{201d} character has been found, in the correct area, the group 1 is not defined => a r letter follows

Finally, the string dquo; is added

Remark : This regex can, also, manage correct areas, which are split on several lines, like as below :

<p class=“test”> Change all “this” text to “that” text.</p>

Best regards,

guy038

P.S. :

Now, if you prefer to search for all the Change “this”. areas, in some HTML code, use the following search regex :

SEARCH (?![\h\r\n]+)[^<>]+?(?=<)

Notes :

The regex [^<>]+?(?=<) tries to match the shortest non-null range of characters, different from the two chars < and >, ONLY IF it’s followed with the < character

And ONLY IF the negative look-ahead is TRUE at the current regex-engine position. In other words IF the area matched is NOT filled in with, only, horizontal blank and line-break characters !

@PeterJones

this may be related to #32

Ugh, and I looked thru the list before opening #104…double ugh!

please see FAQ Desk: Request for Help without sufficient information to help you, then come back to this topic and give us enough information to help you.

For what it’s worth, with NPP 7.5.8 32-bit installed or 64-bit standalone (both of which I’ve used frequently in the last couple days), I have not seen the problem you are describing. My guess is that it’s a plugin causing your issue… if you read the FAQ, and provide the ? > Debug Info, along with other relevant information, someone might be able to help you. But, as it is, all I can say is “it doesn’t happen for me”.

@Vasile-Caraus

It sure seems like you could use a variation on the technique described above:

key concept: use Replace All in All Open Documents or Replace in Files for most of the action create a delimiter and a lookup-table running from 0 to 101 (or whatever), probably all on one line is best, e.g. \r\n-----0:1,1:2,2:3,3:4,4:5,5:6,6:7,7:8,8:9,9:10,10:11,… ; you can do this with the column-editor features to ease the pain…followed by some editing… regex replace \z in each file with the lookup table string created above (this will add the table at the end of each file) run a regex replacement (on all files) like described above for the other poster but customized for your data, e.g. \$item_id = \d+; and the contents of the lookup-table string craft another regex replacement to remove the delimiter and lookup-table from all files

@David-Talbot

Although it doesn’t help with the fixed-interval distribution, these links might assist with doing some random “sorting”:

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/14129/sort-file-removing-duplicates-possible (this is a base link which doesn’t discuss random sorting per se, but it leads to the following link, which offers it as a feature)

@Claudia-Frank 's “Sorter” Pythonscript: https://gist.github.com/ClaudiaFrank/3b5a346b86b5391c67f2f96845ff7ecd

Really though, the OP is a rather specific and esoteric need…and that usually ends up with someone telling you to not depend upon Notepad++ being able to help, but rather grabbing a programming language of your choice and “having at it”.

Notepad++ is used to edit plain text files.
A syntax highlighting lexer can be applied to the text file so it will be displayed with colors.
Notepad++ tries to guess the appropriate lexer from the file extension. Usually it works since extensions are tightly coupled to language.
If it does not then the lexer can be manually selected from the Language menu.
In any case nothing related to Language is ever ‘saved’. Notepad++ only saves the file’s plain text. If your file’s extension is not associated to your desired language then you will have to manually select the language every time you open the file.

If you need to add or fix file extension association to language it can be done from: Settings -> Style Configurator
Select the language and observe: Default ext and User ext.

Right, this time I tested it and I think this regex might achieve the correct result. Sorry about the false start. My mind on other matters.

Find what: ^<passthrumac(?:.+\R){4}.+?>Guest01<(?:.+\R){2}</passthrumac>\R
Replace with: empty field here <— nothing in this field
So search mode is “regular Expresssion” and “wrap-around” ticked, nothing else.

You mentioned Match Case. You could tick it if you ONLY want exactly the text portions as typed in the Find what field, so <passthrumac>, rather than say <PassThruMAC>, and Guest01 rather than guest01. Otherwise I’d leave it unticked.

Again, sorry, have a go with this and let me know.

This regex expects EXACTLY 7 lines, hence I removed the (?s) from the first incorrect one. So the lines must be in the same order as you show. That’s why I only check for >Guest01< rather then look for <username>Guest01</username>. So it cannot confuse Guest01 on that line instead of the following Guest01 with the Auto-added string in front.

Terry

@Douglas-Kaynor said:

Is it possible to set and save style tokens in a notepad++ file?

Not currently, although if you are ambitious you can do it with some scripting

possible future feature?

You can ask; sure seems like this might have been requested before, try searching the issues list…

There is the old (read-only) Notepad++ Wiki: it’s years out-of-date, but some of the basic information is still useful. (For example, the Wrap around is mentioned briefly on the Searching And Replacing page.)

thank you I will try the “snippets” plugins.

@compumatter, I’m not entirely sure whether you mean
“I need to remove the first column of data and its comma” or
“suggest the right replace code for turning x, into blank entry”.

The first suggests deleting the number and it’s comma, the second suggests just replacing the number with a blank space.

I’ll go with the first idea, completely removing the number and comma.
So:
Find what: ^(\()(\h*\d+,\h)
Replace with: \1
In the Replace window, have “regular expression” selected as well as “wrap around”. Clicking the “replace all” button will complete the changes in the entire file.

I’m a bit concerned that the first 9 rows have the number against the (, then there is a space after the ( in the next 3 rows. Hence my regex has the \h* included. I’ve also included a following space so the “70” appears directly behind the (. This could be removed if it’s not essential the “70” is directly behind the (.

This is a fairly easy regex to build, I suggest you read our FAQ, in particular “FAQ Desk: Where to find REGEX documentation ?” it contains lots of links to very good information, it will help get you started learning about regex.

To start you off we have (description):
^ means the start of a line
( is the start of a group
( the \ is a delimiter, because the ( is a special character, so this means literally the (
) is the end of the group, so anything contained within this is captured
( is the start of another group
\h* means as many spaces as exists including none
\d+ means at 1 or more digits
, is of course the comma, literally
\h means 1 space which MUST exist. This could be a \h* if possibly no spaces exist in this position on some rows
) closing of the group

\1 means the 1st captured group is returned. The 2nd captured group is what we want removed, hence it is not added to the replace field and is effectively deleted.

Hope this helps

Terry

It’s not a Notepad++ problem; it’s the way Windows handles Admin privilege.

A first response in a web search gave a SuperUser.com question that seems relevant. Hopefully it will help you: https://superuser.com/questions/690287/command-prompt-in-administrator-mode-doesnt-see-mapped-drives

@Dylan-van-Eeden

I only select the .html in the SaveAs box!

Well, as I tried to hint, that isn’t going to do it. All that does is to filter out anything but .html files from your view of already existing files. Here’s your bigger hint: If you are working on a file and you want it to be named abc.html then in the SaveAs box you will want to actually type abc.html.

@John-McIntyre said:

Click on the "(Unofficial) Notepad++

UGH!

Thanks for the reply. NPP 7.5.5 on my computer does behave as you say. I was using version 6.9.2 which doesn’t have his feature when posting this question. Problem solved.