How to write parentheses in replacement, using the "Regular expression" mode ?

guy038

@vuvanvui-vui send me an e-mail, today, saying :

hello Guy, how are you today,
hmm i have a question on notepad ++

in Regular express mode i can’t replace something = “(”, “)”

exam: i want to replace: Guy = (Guy)
the () is lost in result
thanks and sorry for my bad english :D

As I think that the solution may be useful for others, I prefer to reply on our site !

Quite easy ! In the Replacement zone, you must simply escape the parentheses with the usual \ symbol ;-)). So :

SEARCH Guy

REPLACE $Guy$ ( or even \x28Guy\x29 )

Notes :

The six characters, which have to be escaped, with the backslash \ symbol, are :
- The backslash symbol \
- The left parenthesis (
- The right parenthesis )
- The dollar sign $
- The question mark punctuation sign ?
- The colon punctuation sign :
The above signs have a specific meaning, in the Boost Format String library ! Just refer to :

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_55_0/libs/regex/doc/html/boost_regex/format/boost_format_syntax.html

Most of the time, in replacement, the $, ? and : symbols do not need to be escaped !

Cheers,

guy038

Vuvanvui Vui

thanks a lot ;)

古旮

Haha. This is a question I asked more than a year ago, to which guy038 also gave valuable reply.
Seriously, is there a way to edit NPP wiki? I can’t find how to register. And the Regular Expression Page is incomplete and still has some obvious errors.

古旮

Funny enough: another same question.