Find and Replace specific character in a specific string

Saeed Ghazi Joolaee

Hi,
I have a text:

way 150841940
highway = residential
name = ‘Smith 120’
name:fr = ‘Simon 120’
nd 1637110349
nd 1637110360

Then I want to replace any digit in lines which have "name = " in it with another character, and I don’t want any digit in other places be replaced.

for example, I want replace 1 with X then :
name = ‘Smith 120’ --------> name = ‘Smith X20’
but name:fr = ‘Simon 120’ --------> no change
and nd 1637110349-------->no change

Claudia Frank

Hello Saeed-Ghazi-Joolaee,

from the provided example I assume that Smith 120 is surrounded by a single quote.

Open replace dialog and check regular expression in search mode.
The regex which needs to be used is

 (.*name = ')(.* )(\d+)(')

which should result in 4 groups

\1: name = '
\2: Smith 
\3: 120
\4: '

what means the replace dialog needs to be used like

Find what    :(.*name = ')(.* )(\d+)(')
Replace with :\1\2xxx\4

which would then result in

way 150841940
highway = residential
name = 'Smith xxx'
name:fr = 'Simon 120'
nd 1637110349
nd 1637110360

Cheers
Claudia

Saeed Ghazi Joolaee

Thanks Claudia,

But I mean something else. I have numerouse sequence of this text block with different “names” which have different numbers in them. I want to replace “1” in all names with “X”, '2" with “Y”, and “3” with “Z” …9

way 35103881
name = ‘4/2’
nd 411824630
nd 717069654

way 152126825
name = ‘2nd Street’
nd 1649547187
nd 1649547183
nd 1649547177

way 191544328
name = ‘Joe 618’
nd 2021290076
nd 2021290075
nd 2021290074
nd 2021290073

way 191544409
name = ‘John 13’
nd 2021290720
nd 2021290719

(Excuse me for long Example)

How can I replace one by one digit with my desired letters in “name” lines. Maybe with help of Marked lines this could be done, isn’t it?

Claudia Frank

Hello Saeed-Ghazi-Joolaee

still having problems to understand the logic which needs to be used.
I understand only the line with name = is of interested.
Can we safely assume that the value which needs to be changed is surrounded by single quotes?
Is the first digit,which needs to be replaced, strictly mapped to a letter ?
The provided example

name = ‘4/2’ needs to be changed to something like name=‘Y/2’
and
name = ‘Joe 618’ to something like name = ‘Joe R18’

Correct?

Cheers
Claudia

Saeed Ghazi Joolaee

Hello Claudia,

Thanks for your contribution,
Exactly, I want to replace Latin numbers with Persian numbers. For your convenience, I used here Latin letters.

I must do it digit by digit, because I don’t know which numbers is used in my text (I can’t do it from 0 to 9999999999…, Thus, It’s better done digit by digit from 0 to 9). And I want only to replace numbers in name = lines not other numbers - which must be in English intact.

@ Can we safely assume that the value which needs to be changed is surrounded by single quotes?
quotes are not important at all.

@ name = ‘Joe 618’ to something like name = ‘Joe R18’
Correct?
Exactly. Finally after replacing all 9 digits I want name = ‘Joe RAV’

Thanks in advance.

Claudia Frank

Hello @Saeed-Ghazi-Joolaee

quotes are not important at all.
they are important as I use a regualr expression based on the existance of the single quotes.

You need to run the regex 10 times, for each digit one run.
You build 4 groups ( ), where as group 3 is the number you are looking for
Something like

(.*name = ')(.*)(8)(.*')

and replace with

\1\2V\4

The letter which is used as replacement is between group \2 and \4 without spaces.

I hope this does what you are looking for.

Cheers
Claudia

Saeed Ghazi Joolaee

Hi Claudia,

Thanks for your kind help. I almost reached my destination. The only thing is that for numbers which have equal digits like 33 or 333 I must search two or three times to complete my replacement. As far as my numbers are maximum 3 digit numbers, this in no matter.

Cheers.