Need help for regular expression - find, insert and delete

Alan Kilborn

@Venus642

Perhaps this is a correct clarification:

If a | character is not found after the leading digits on a line, insert it with a space before it and a space after it
If a | character is found anywhere else in a line, remove it and anything that follows it (and any space before it)

Venus642

Thanks Alan for your Info and help.

How can I change that with regex?
From:
220 Txt Txt Txt
To:
220 | Txt Txt Txt

Or delete and insert:
From:
10 Txt Txt Txt | 300
To:
10 | Txt Txt Txt

Sorry. I have no idea how to make regex do it…

Alan Kilborn

@Venus642

I would do two separate steps:

find: ^(\d+ )([^|])
repl: ${1}| ${2}

and then:

find: (?-s)^(\d+ \|.*?) \|.*
repl: ${1}

Venus642

WooooooooW!
Alan -Big big thanks for your help!

Alan Kilborn

@Venus642 said in Need help for regular expression - find, insert and delete:

Big big thanks for your help!

Pay back by learning about how it worked, so that next time you don’t have to ask. :-)

Start with information HERE

astrosofista

Hi @Venus642, @Alan-Kilborn

Another option, in one step:

Search: (?-s)(?:^(\d+) *?([A-Za-z]+))|( *?\| *?\d+)$
Replace: ?1($1 | $2)

Have fun!

Venus642

One step - Perfect…
Alan and astrosofist - Top help!

Alan Kilborn

@Venus642 said in Need help for regular expression - find, insert and delete:

One step - Perfect…

Yea, I wouldn’t get too bogged down in it needing to be a one-step operation.
If it is something you need to do often, you will make it a macro anyway (so you can give it a meaningful name).
And if it is a macro, it can just as well be two replacement steps (because, by the nature of macros, multiple steps look like one step).

Venus642

@Alan-Kilborn
Alan I have tested again and your solutions is better in my case.

Alan Kilborn

@Venus642 said in Need help for regular expression - find, insert and delete:

Alan … your solutions is better

Well, I certainly wasn’t trying to “win”. :-)
I often try to point out that a solution to such a problem doesn’t have to be all crammed into one operation.
It can make the operation harder to understand for a novice with regular expressions.