Title updated.

Hi Greg and Joe,

Joe, concerning the SEARCH regex, I suppose that you meant, ( with some more star meta-characters ! ) :

SEARCH = ^(.*?,.*?,.*?),(.*?),(.*?),(.*?),(.*?),(.*?),(.*?),(.*?),(.*?),$

Then, with :

REPLACE = \1,\2\r\n\1,\3\r\n\1,\4\r\n\1,\5\r\n\1,\6\r\n\1,\7\r\n\1,\8\r\n\1,\9

it would, indeed, match the line, with 8 addresses, below

10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0,10.16.65.0,10.16.66.0,10.16.67.0,10.16.68.0,10.16.69.0,10.16.70.0,10.16.71.0,

and changed it into the block of 8 lines, below :

10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.65.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.66.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.67.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.68.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.69.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.70.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.71.0

Unfortunately, if a line, of Greg’s text, has less than eight addresses, at the end, your regex would not work :-((

But, thanks to you, you put me in the good direction and gave me an idea for getting all the work done, with ONE regex ONLY !!

So, I start with the example text, below, which contains all possible cases, from no address to 8 addresses, after the environment field, of each line :

10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod, 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0, 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0,10.16.65.0, 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0,10.16.65.0,10.16.66.0, 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0,10.16.65.0,10.16.66.0,10.16.67.0, 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0,10.16.65.0,10.16.66.0,10.16.67.0,10.16.68.0, 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0,10.16.65.0,10.16.66.0,10.16.67.0,10.16.68.0,10.16.69.0, 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0,10.16.65.0,10.16.66.0,10.16.67.0,10.16.68.0,10.16.69.0,10.16.70.0, 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0,10.16.65.0,10.16.66.0,10.16.67.0,10.16.68.0,10.16.69.0,10.16.70.0,10.16.71.0,

The following S/R, with search mode = Regular expression, will realize everything, after clicking, ONCE only, on the Replace All button !!

SEARCH = (.*?,.*?,.*?,)(?:(.*?),)?(?:(.*?),)?(?:(.*?),)?(?:(.*?),)?(?:(.*?),)?(?:(.*?),)?(?:(.*?),)?(?:(.*?),)?

REPLACE = \1(?2\2)\r\n(?3\1\3\r\n)(?4\1\4\r\n)(?5\1\5\r\n)(?6\1\6\r\n)(?7\1\7\r\n)(?8\1\8\r\n)(?9\1\9\r\n)

So, in one go, the resulting text would be :

10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod, 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.65.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.65.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.66.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.65.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.66.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.67.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.65.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.66.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.67.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.68.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.65.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.66.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.67.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.68.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.69.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.65.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.66.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.67.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.68.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.69.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.70.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.64.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.65.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.66.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.67.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.68.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.69.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.70.0 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,10.16.71.0

Et voilà ! Well, although I practised regexes, since many years, I, always, surprised by their incredible power !!

Notes :

If the original line is only 10.16.64.0/24,ABC,Prod,, without any address, after, the S/R just rewrites that line

In the search regex, the 8 parts (.*?) are groups from 2 to 9, each containing a possible address, which must be rewritten, in replacement

These 8 groups, followed by a comma, are embedded in an optional non-capturing group (?:(.*?),)? ( the group may be present [1] or absent [0] )

At the beginning, the part (.*?,.*?,.*?,) looks for the first three fields : network, datacenter and environment, followed by a comma

In replacement, the syntax (?#\1\#\r\n) is called a conditional replacement. It means that IF the group # exists, then it rewrites the group 1, followed by the group #, followed by the Windows EOL characters \r\n

At the beginning, the part \1(?2\2)\r\n writes, first, the group 1. Then it writes the group 2, ONLY IF it exists ( the first IPV4 address ), and, finally rewrites the Windows EOL characters \r\n

Remarks :

Contrary to my previous post, with this new S/R, there is no condition, any more, about the contents of fields 2 and 3 ! They could be, for instance : 10.16.64.0/24,99999,00000000,… :-)

Any possible leading indentation, of a line, is just kept, by this S/R !

You can click, either, on the Replace All button AND/OR on the Replace button, for a step by step replacement :-)

Cheers,

guy038

The TextFX plugin may help you.

See the TextFX menu -> TextFX Tools -> Sort lines case sensitive (at column)
for example.

What you do is make a column block (Alt + Left-click, then drag) covering the lines you want sorted and have the left side of the block be in the first column you want the sort to be based upon.

As others have pointed out it isn’t natively supported out of the box.

That being said it is kind of possible to do what you want with a plugin and/or script. You’d have to write a custom lexer to determine which parts are meant to be locked (depending on the format this may be very easy or complex). Specific Scintilla styles can be “locked”, though supposedly not perfect. The custom lexer could mark and color parts of the form as being locked vs unlocked.

Notepad with Regex is much easy to use, for me, which I am not a programmer. And, I believe, there are many people like me… Not everyone is a programmer.

Hi Vasile Caraus,

Just see my solution, below, in topic about replacing by multiple values of a same line :

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/12341/regex-double-your-words/9

Cheers,

guy038

It works because the Alt+Lclick is really starting a column-block, just no drag while holding Alt down to define that block. Column-blocking, out of necessity, needs to work with virtual spacing as some lines that may be in the column block might be shorter than others.

I don’t turn on permanently the beyond end-of-line movement modification as guy038 describes, because I found that that causes some strange behavior with auto-indentation in the language I typically use most often (Python). Actually, I do have a pythonscript tied to a keypress that toggles cursor end-of-line “freedom” mode on and off for when I want it.

Thanks!

Go to the Settings dropdown menu.
Choose Preferences…
In the box on the left, select “Auto-Completion”
Disable (uncheck) choices on the right until you are happy with the result.

Hello Vasile Caraus,

In replacement regex, the contents of a nth subset of parentheses, defining a group, in the search regex, may be written in THREE different ways :

From \1 to \9 So, this syntax is acceptable if you don’t have more than 9 capturing groups, in the search regex

From $0 to $N In the syntax $N N may be a number, greater than 10. I didn’t try it, but I suppose that N can be up to 65535 !!. Just note that $0 represents the totality of the match, whereas $1 stands for group 1, $2 stands for group 2 and so on…

From ${0} to ${N}, with the SAME syntax as above. This said, what is the interest to surround the number by curly braces ? Do you guess it…

Well just imagine that you want, for instance, to rewrite, in replacement, the contents of group1, but preceded and followed by the string 999. At first sight, you would simply write 999$1999. However, after replacement, you just obtain the string 999 !
Because the regex engine thinks that you want to write the literal string 999, followed by the contents of group $1999. As, of course, this group does not exists in the search regex, it just replace the non-defined group $1999 by an empty string !

Therefore, the solution consists to use the third and right syntax, giving the replacement regex 999${1}999

So, Vasile Caraus, when you write $1\2, in replacement ( or also $1$2, \1$2 or \1\2 ) as you didn’t define a second group, in the search regex, this is just equivalent to the simple \1 or $1 syntax.

And, as the group 1 (.+) represents all the standard characters of a NON-empty line, between the two assertions Beginning and End of line, you just replace any line by itself !!

Then, it’s obvious that hitting CTRL-Z cancels each S/R, giving back the identical original lines :-))

Best Regards,

guy38

@Harishkumar-Pathangay

In HEX Editor Mode, why it is converting to Unicode?

this plugin was written back in 2009 and at this time npp didn’t support
encodings like today, only the standard ansi, utf-8 … were available.

Cheers
Claudia