Extracting the Column with condition

nicol arm

maxfea@hot.com:1402888839:O*Y`x:97B85026-ABF2-4E94-8573-87191F38DB7D
nRequired:vanfrie@comcast.net:1402888833:UnRequired:unrequired:unrequired:unrequired
dgekun:edgen@gmail.com:1402888899:edge:edge:edg:edg:(j2V’:4494FC8E-6B05-4BE9-B840-FB709D39B1B3
enemoth:diogocfe90@gmail.com:1402988472:Benemoth:benemoth:benemoth:d{n+":C8B51137-8EDA-E111-9DA3-E4115BBB7082
cs2673340@yahoo.com:1402889215:XybQE:AC9D2403-B26E-4885-9168

The result I need is:
maxfea@hot.com:1402888839:O*Y`x:97B85026-ABF2-4E94-8573-87191F38DB7D
cs2673340@yahoo.com:1402889215:XybQE:AC9D2403-B26E-4885-9168

thanks to all of you

Alan Kilborn

@nicol-arm

Column with condition

Umm, I think you left off what the condition is…and it appears you are extracting rows, not columns…??

nicol arm

@Alan-Kilborn said in Extracting the Column with condition:

@nicol-arm

Column with condition

Umm, I think you left off what the condition is…and it appears you are extracting rows, not columns…??

sorry it’s row

Alan Kilborn

@nicol-arm

I repeat:

I think you left off what the condition is

In other words, what are the criterion for keeping version discarding a row?

nicol arm

@Alan-Kilborn said in Extracting the Column with condition:

In other words, what are the criterion for keeping version discarding a row?

Excuse me but I don’t understand, I only require the rows that start with the mail

PeterJones

@nicol-arm said in Extracting the Column with condition:

I only require the rows that start with the mail

“start with the mail” is a very unhelpful condition. Do you mean “start with certain email addresses that @nicol-arm has in mind but is asking the Community to infer from the post”? Or do you mean “start with only a valid email address, which @nicol-arm happens to assume has no colon :, so the Community should infer anything with a colon : before the @ is not a line matched”? Or something else that I cannot guess?

If you want help, you have to provide details. The below will help you understand better; please read it!

-----

Please Read And Understand This

FYI: I often add this to my response in regex threads, unless I am sure the original poster has seen it before. Here is some helpful information for finding out more about regular expressions, and for formatting posts in this forum (especially quoting data) so that we can fully understand what you’re trying to ask:

This forum is formatted using Markdown. Fortunately, it has a formatting toolbar above the edit window, and a preview window to the right; make use of those. The </> button formats text as “code”, so that the text you format with that button will come through literally ; use that formatting for example text that you want to make sure comes through literally, no matter what characters you use in the text (otherwise, the forum might interpret your example text as Markdown, with unexpected-for-you results, giving us a bad indication of what your data really is).

Images can be pasted directly into your post, or you can hit the image button. (For more about how to manually use Markdown in this forum, please see @Scott-Sumner’s post in the “how to markdown code on this forum” topic, and my updates near the end.) Please use the preview window on the right to confirm that your text looks right before hitting SUBMIT. If you want to clearly communicate your text data to us, you need to properly format it.

If you have further search-and-replace (“matching”, “marking”, “bookmarking”, regular expression, “regex”) needs, study the official Notepad++ searching using regular-expressions docs, as well as this forum’s FAQ and the documentation it points to. Before asking a new regex question, understand that for future requests, many of us will expect you to show what data you have (exactly), what data you want (exactly), what regex you already tried (to show that you’re showing effort), why you thought that regex would work (to prove it wasn’t just something randomly typed), and what data you’re getting with an explanation of why that result is wrong. When you show that effort, you’ll see us bend over backward to get things working for you. If you need help formatting, see the paragraph above.

Please note that for all regex and related queries, it is best if you are explicit about what needs to match, and what shouldn’t match, and have multiple examples of both in your example dataset. Often, what shouldn’t match helps define the regular expression as much or more than what should match.

Here is the way I usually break down trying to figure out a regex (whether it’s for myself or for helping someone in the forum):

Compare what portions of each line I want to match is identical to every other one (“constants”), and what parts do I want to allow to be different in each line (“variables”) but still be part of the match.

Look at both the variables and constants, and see what portions of each I’ll want to keep or move around, vs which parts get thrown away completely. Each sub-component that I want to keep will be put in a regex group. Anything that gets completely thrown away doesn’t need to be in a group, though sometimes I put it in a numbered (___) or unnumbered (?:___) group anyway, if I have a good reason for it. Anything that needs to be split apart, I break into multiple groups, instead of having it as one group.

For each group, I do a mental “how would I describe to my son how to correctly match these characters?” – which should hopefully give me a simple, foolproof algorithm of characters that must match or must not match; then I ask, “how would I translate those instructions into regex sequences?” If I don’t know the answer to the second, I read documentation, or ask a specific question.

try it, debug, iterate.

nicol arm

This post is deleted!

nicol arm

@PeterJones

Excuse me sir, I didn’t want to bother you

Alan Kilborn

@nicol-arm said in Extracting the Column with condition:

I didn’t want to bother you

You’re not bothering anyone, you just need to frame your problem statement so it makes sense. Otherwise, no one will be able to help you with your problem. Do you understand?

PeterJones

@nicol-arm said in Extracting the Column with condition:

@PeterJones

Excuse me sir, I didn’t want to bother you

As I said before, “If you want help, you have to provide details.” I wasn’t trying to say “<wc_fields_impression>go away kid, you bother me</wc_fields_impression>”. I was trying to help you: we cannot answer you unless you give us enough information to go on. So far, no matter who asks for clarification, or how, you aren’t providing the additional details. If you want help, you will have to help us help you by answering the questions we ask.

Alan Kilborn

@PeterJones

I guess we scare people off.
Pesky us, asking for some level of detail.

nicol arm

@Alan-Kilborn

friend these are my lines

rotector:lyndennelson_@hotmail.com:1402889569brotector:brotector:brotector:brotector
chris.vancura@me.com:1402889576:DI)d/:134A2FF5-A236-471C-944A-EA3C20018048
mikeyjulian@me.com:1402889601:1403494404f:E219F3E1-2669-43B7-B172-31F9AD53199D
azerat:fallstar@me.com:1402889686:1403509967:mazerat:mazerat:mazerat:mazerat:f0bffa36c4ad18a3893e8777fd34c936:_C5ke:6830D32C-A73A-4FD0-883B-B6962A7BC049
alym:djrenner@me.com:1402889716:Kalym:kalym:kalym:kalym:“”“-3GR”:6B5D3486-E305-E311-B9FB-E4115BBB7082
heExpectorator:jaaronhaskett@me.com:1402889752:“VulgartheStalker”:vulgar-the-stalker:“vulgarthestalker”:theexpectorato
galya15@me.com:1402889798:(b~p:642273FB-A46D-4DE2-B179-91CFB2D6E0EE
abeldom@hotmail.com:1402889835:1403494636
latch:queda@me.com:1402889853:flatch:flatch:flatch
uddlyCobra:christor@shaw.ca:1402889875:cuddlycobra:cuddlycobra:D31789B7-5A2C-4BAA-9F38-364493693131

I only need those rows that start with the email

chris.vancura@me.com:1402889576:DI)d/:134A2FF5-A236-471C-944A-EA3C20018048
mikeyjulian@me.com:1402889601:1403494404f:E219F3E1-2669-43B7-B172-31F9AD53199D
galya15@me.com:1402889798:(b~p:642273FB-A46D-4DE2-B179-91CFB2D6E0EE
abeldom@hotmail.com:1402889835:1403494636

PeterJones

@nicol-arm said in Extracting the Column with condition:

I only need those rows that start with the email

You still haven’t said how you can tell that rotector:lyndennelson_@hotmail.com isn’t a valid email. Per Wiki:Email_address,

space and special characters "(),:;<>@[] are allowed with restrictions (they are only allowed inside a quoted string, as described in the paragraph below, and in addition, a backslash or double-quote must be preceded by a backslash)

So they can be part of a valid email address; the SMTP mail system requires that they be quoted if used in the To/From… but there is no such universal/absolute requirement for all systems that store emails; if your CSV (character-separated-value: in this case, apparently colon-separated) database assumes that colons are invalid in email, there is a bug in your database design.

Assuming you want to perpetuate the falsehood that colons aren’t part of valid email addresses, your solution would be

FIND = ^.*?:.*?\@.*(\R|\Z)
REPLACE = (empty)

rotector:lyndennelson_@hotmail.com:1402889569brotector:brotector:brotector:brotector
chris.vancura@me.com:1402889576:DI)d/:134A2FF5-A236-471C-944A-EA3C20018048
mikeyjulian@me.com:1402889601:1403494404f:E219F3E1-2669-43B7-B172-31F9AD53199D
azerat:fallstar@me.com:1402889686:1403509967:mazerat:mazerat:mazerat:mazerat:f0bffa36c4ad18a3893e8777fd34c936:_C5ke:6830D32C-A73A-4FD0-883B-B6962A7BC049
alym:djrenner@me.com:1402889716:Kalym:kalym:kalym:kalym:"""-3GR":6B5D3486-E305-E311-B9FB-E4115BBB7082
heExpectorator:jaaronhaskett@me.com:1402889752:“VulgartheStalker”:vulgar-the-stalker:“vulgarthestalker”:theexpectorato
galya15@me.com:1402889798:(b~p:642273FB-A46D-4DE2-B179-91CFB2D6E0EE
abeldom@hotmail.com:1402889835:1403494636
latch:queda@me.com:1402889853:flatch:flatch:flatch
uddlyCobra:christor@shaw.ca:1402889875:cuddlycobra:cuddlycobra:D31789B7-5A2C-4BAA-9F38-364493693131

becomes

chris.vancura@me.com:1402889576:DI)d/:134A2FF5-A236-471C-944A-EA3C20018048
mikeyjulian@me.com:1402889601:1403494404f:E219F3E1-2669-43B7-B172-31F9AD53199D
galya15@me.com:1402889798:(b~p:642273FB-A46D-4DE2-B179-91CFB2D6E0EE
abeldom@hotmail.com:1402889835:1403494636

… which appears to be what you want, despite the error in your assumptions.

That regex matches any that does have a colon before the first @, and deletes the whole row. The (\R|\Z) matches either newline or the end of the file (so it will work even if the uddlyCobra line doesn’t have a newline sequence).

nicol arm

@PeterJones
Peter Jones, thanks a lot
Solved