Q: How to sort groups of lines alphabetically according to the first word after the beginning of each group

[Ziad Aborami]

I am searching for a function in notepad++ that lets me sort groups of lines in this way:

• The group of lines ist between two regular words for example <article> and </article>
  After <article> I have a variable word * for example* human
  In the next group I have another word for example animal
  I want to sort the groups of lines alphabetically according to the word after <article>

---

Example:
<article>human
Content
Of
Many
Lines
</article>
<article>animal
Content
Of
Another
Many
Lines
</article>
<article>thing
Content
Of
Other
Many
Lines
</article>

I want to sort them alphabetically in this way:
<article>animal
Content
Of
Another
Many
Lines
</article>
<article>human
Content
Of
Many
Lines
</article>
<article>thing
Content
Of
Other
Many
Lines
</article>
,
I hope that you help me
Thanks in advance

[PeterJones]

Step 0: Assume no smiley faces (☺ U+263A) in the data set; assumes windows newlines (CRLF = \r\n)
Step 1: Find \R(?!<article>) (any newline not followed by the next starting <article>), replace with \x{263a} (smiley face), regular expression mode
Step 2: Edit > Line Operations > Sort Lines Lexicographically Ascending
Step 3: Find \x{263a}, replace \r\n, regular expression

[PeterJones]

By way of explanation: I chose a smiley face as a “record separator” that was unlikely to occur in your data. If it does, pick any other unicode character you are sure isn’t in your data. I was originally going to replace with a space, but I realized that, even though your data doesn’t show any of the lines inside an <article>...</article> having a space, with how artificial your data was, I assumed you may have oversimplified the example, and didn’t want to risk you coming back and saying “but I had a space”. Note that assumptions like these are good reasons for providing sufficient data to tell what you really want, and what are allowed and not allowed situations.

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[Ziad Aborami]

Thanks very much.
It worked fine.
I have put
\R(?!(<article>(.+?)</article>))
Then the same method

Best wishes