Newbie find and replace

[Tony Hager]

I’ve read the tutorials and several of the questions from others to try and figure this out, I have gotten close by being able to find my strings but I can’t seem to get the replacement to work correctly.

Current lines:
BuildingAreaSource Character,75,Values
BuildingNumber Character,5,
BuildingUse Character,1000,Values
BusinessName Character,40,
BuyersAgencyCommission Character,10,
CancelledDate DateTime,10,
CapitalizationRate Decimal,7,

I need to end up with:
BuildingAreaSource Character(75),
BuildingNumber Character(5),
BuildingUse Character(1000),
BusinessName Character(40),
BuyersAgencyCommission Character(10),
CancelledDate DateTime(10),
CapitalizationRate Decimal(7),

This is what I was using:
Find what: ,[0-9]+,
Replace with: (\1),

Result from this search just deletes my numerals and leaves one comma

How can I get it to put the numerals back with the ()

TIA

[Scott Sumner]

@Tony-Hager

Well you have a few problems with your regex…one big one is that in the replace expression you reference a group # that doesn’t exist because you didn’t use capturing parentheses in your find expression…

Maybe try this:

Find what zone: ,(\d+),(?:Values)?$
Replace with zone: \(\1\),
Search mode: Regular expression

Here’s an explanation of how it works:

THE FIND EXPRESSION:
,(\d+),(?:Values)?$

• Match the character “,” literally ,
• Match the regex below and capture its match into backreference number 1 (\d+)
  • Match a single character that is a “digit” (any symbol with a decimal value in the active code page) \d+
    • Between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy) +
• Match the character “,” literally ,
• Match the regular expression below (?:Values)?
  • Between zero and one times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy) ?
  • Match the character string “Values” literally (case sensitive) Values
• Assert position at the end of a line (at the end of the string or before a line break character) (carriage return and line feed, form feed) $

THE REPLACE EXPRESSION:
\(\1\),

• Insert an opening parenthesis \(
• Insert the text that was last matched by capturing group number 1 \1
• Insert a closing parenthesis \)
• Insert the character “,” literally ,

Created with RegexBuddy

[Tony Hager]

Thank you very much!