Replace text with incremented counter?

Guilherme Sommer

Newbie here - please be gentle! :)

I’m sure there must already be a way to do this, but I haven’t yet figured it out. I’m trying to find a way to replace text with an incremented counter. For example, if I have a file containing this:

= = = = = = = = = =
<TAG>9999</TAG>
<TAGHERE>
<OTHERTAG>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate</OTHERTAG>
</TAGHERE>
<TAG>9999</TAG>
<TAGHERE>
<OTHERTAG>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate</OTHERTAG>
</TAGHERE>
<TAG>9999</TAG>
= = = = = = = = = =

I’d like to replace the first occurrence of “9999” with “0”, the second occurrence of “9999” with “1”, etc., resulting in:

= = = = = = = = = =
<TAG>0</TAG>
<TAGHERE>
<OTHERTAG>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate</OTHERTAG>
</TAGHERE>
<TAG>1</TAG>
<TAGHERE>
<OTHERTAG>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate</OTHERTAG>
</TAGHERE>
<TAG>2</TAG>
= = = = = = = = = =

I don’t see any way to do this through regular expressions. I’m guessing it might be possible with Python Script plugin, but I’m apparently too stupid to figure out how. Is there a way to do this with Notepad++?

Scott Sumner

@Guilherme-Sommer

This cannot be done with normal regular-expression replacement in Notepad++.

Scripting is the way to go. Have a look at the editor.rereplace function in the Pythonscript documentation. There is an example there that is really close to what you want to do.

Guilherme Sommer

@Scott-Sumner

I had tried a similar code already
But it’s not what I want

What I did:
def calculate(match):
return ‘<TAG>%s’ % (str(int(match.group(1))+1))
editor.rereplace(‘<TAG>([0-9]+)’, calculate)

But this increments the number inside <TAG>
Meaning this
<TAG>120<TAG>
<TAG>300<TAG>
<TAG>552<TAG>

Become this
<TAG>121<TAG>
<TAG>301<TAG>
<TAG>553<TAG>

And what I want is this
<TAG>0<TAG>
<TAG>1<TAG>
<TAG>2<TAG>

Scott Sumner

@Guilherme-Sommer

Maybe try something more like this?:

count = -1

def calculate(m):
    global count
    count += 1
    return '<TAG>' + str(count) + '<TAG>'

editor.rereplace('<TAG>([0-9]+)<TAG>', calculate);

Guilherme Sommer

@Scott-Sumner

It worked perfectly!! Thank you very much!