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    Remove duplicate lines not possible?

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    • SofistanppS
      Sofistanpp @guy038
      last edited by

      @guy038 said in Remove duplicate lines not possible?:

      I cannot get an other layout, with a correct regex S/R ! ( For instance, keeping the line bbb between lines aaa and ccc and deleting all subsequent bbb lines ) Sorry for this limitation !

      Hi guy038, Cletos, All:

      Not a regex solution, but if you reverse the list —for example, by means of the Reverse Lines plugin— and run the nice regex you provided, you will get the first “bbb” with all duplicates being deleted. Once you are finished, reverse the list again to get the original order of lines.

      Hope you find this, my first post here, useful.

      Best Regards.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • CletosC
        Cletos
        last edited by

        Hello Sofistanpp,

        OK, sounds very good! Many thanks!

        SofistanppS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • SofistanppS
          Sofistanpp @Cletos
          last edited by

          @Cletos Glad to be of help.

          Alan KilbornA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Alan KilbornA
            Alan Kilborn @Sofistanpp
            last edited by

            @Sofistanpp

            Maybe explain how reversing the lines helps?

            SofistanppS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • SofistanppS
              Sofistanpp @Alan Kilborn
              last edited by

              @Alan-Kilborn Sure. It looks to overcome a limitation pointed out by guy038, who wrote that the regex he posted remove all the duplicates except the last one, but it seems that he wanted to keep the first one. So if you reverse the order of lines and run the regex, you will remove, of course, all the instances except the last duplicate — now reverse the list back to the original order and you would have actually kept the first instance of the line —the “bbb” between “aaa” and “ccc” of the example.

              Hope it is clear now (English is not my first language).

              Best Regards.

              Alan KilbornA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
              • Alan KilbornA
                Alan Kilborn @Sofistanpp
                last edited by

                @Sofistanpp

                Ah, okay, I missed the point about wanting to keep the first rather than the last. Thanks for the clarification.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • guy038G
                  guy038
                  last edited by guy038

                  Hi, @cletos, @sofistanpp, @alan-kilborn and All,

                  @sofistanpp, I didn’t want to privilege any solution but, indeed, it’s good to be able to chose, with your clever idea of using the Reverse Lines plugin, between these two solutions :

                  • Keep the first duplicate line and delete all subsequent duplicate lines

                  • Delete any duplicate but just keep the last duplicate line

                  Now, thinking about it, I found out a solution which can be processed within N++ only, preventing from using any external tool


                  If we go back to my previous example, open the Column editor ( Edit > Column Editor... ) and, moving the caret to the first column of the first line of your text, create a new number’s list ( Don’t forget to tick the Leading zeros option ! )

                  Then after adding 1 or several blank character(s), after each number, with the column mode selection, you should get :

                  
                  01 aaa
                  02 bbb
                  03 ccc
                  04 ddd
                  05 bbb
                  06 bbb
                  07 eee
                  08 fff
                  09 bbb
                  10 ggg
                  11 bbb
                  12 hhh
                  13 iii
                  

                  Now, sort the lines with the option Edit > Line Operations > Sort Lines Lexicographically Descending, giving :

                  13 iii
                  12 hhh
                  11 bbb
                  10 ggg
                  09 bbb
                  08 fff
                  07 eee
                  06 bbb
                  05 bbb
                  04 ddd
                  03 ccc
                  02 bbb
                  01 aaa
                  

                  Finally, after running this new version of my previous regex S/R :

                  • SEARCH (?-s)^\d+\h+(.+\R)(?=(?s:.*)^\d+\h+\1)

                  • REPLACE Leave EMPTY

                  You’re left with :

                  13 iii
                  12 hhh
                  10 ggg
                  08 fff
                  07 eee
                  04 ddd
                  03 ccc
                  02 bbb
                  01 aaa
                  

                  Finally, after the second sort Edit > Line Operations > Sort Lines Lexicographically Ascending, in the reverse order, we have the following output text :

                  01 aaa
                  02 bbb
                  03 ccc
                  04 ddd
                  07 eee
                  08 fff
                  10 ggg
                  12 hhh
                  13 iii
                  

                  As expected, it remains the duplicate bbb line between lines aaa and ccc only ;-))

                  Best Regards,

                  guy038

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                  • SofistanppS
                    Sofistanpp
                    last edited by

                    Hi guy038, All:

                    Well done. I’m glad my post somehow inspired you to develop a more comprehensive solution to the current issue. As I learned reading archived posts, ancillary lists are a frequently used resource of your toolbox.

                    On my side, reversing lines wasn’t my first thought. What would happen, I asked myself, if I run that regex in backward direction from the last line? Would I get, by symmetry, the first “bbb”? Enabled the Backward direction button via an AutoHotkey script and clicked on Replace All, but no joy. You will get exactly the same outcome as if you run the regex in normal direction.

                    I suspect that lookarounds are the culprits (simpler regexes do the expected job), but haven’t thoroughly tested it.

                    Maybe you or someone else can elaborate on this issue.

                    Best Regards.

                    Alan KilbornA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • CletosC
                      Cletos
                      last edited by

                      Hello guy038,

                      Thank you you very much for the new method!

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • Alan KilbornA
                        Alan Kilborn @Sofistanpp
                        last edited by Alan Kilborn

                        @Sofistanpp

                        run that regex in backward direction from the last line

                        Searching backwards with regex is “discouraged” and is partially disabled in Notepad++.
                        The reason, I think, is that thru a given text, if you search backwards versus forwards, you won’t get the same hits. Sometimes (simpler regexes, as you noted) you will, but not always (depends upon the regex and maybe the data).

                        Enabled the Backward direction button via an AutoHotkey script

                        In general, enabling disabled controls and then performing an operation and expecting good results is a dubious premise.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                        • endolithE
                          endolith @Cletos
                          last edited by endolith

                          @Cletos Yes this feature is buggy, I see it fairly often. Usually I can click “Remove duplicate lines” and it removes them all, regardless of order, but sometimes it doesn’t remove any of them. Something wrong with the software, but I can’t pinpoint what’s wrong. It depends on the text? Or I have to create a new blank document and then it works there, and then copy it back into the original?

                          Alan KilbornA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • Alan KilbornA
                            Alan Kilborn @endolith
                            last edited by

                            @endolith said in Remove duplicate lines not possible?:

                            It depends on the text?

                            Could be a line-ending problem?
                            If line-endings are different on otherwise duplicate lines, they won’t be considered true duplicates.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
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