Mark all .pdf files except zusammenfassung.pdf using RegEx

Andreas Soraru

Hi there,

i have exported a real large content file from Joomla with articles and fields using J2XML.
Now i have to delte some unused stuff, wich works real good with Notepad++. But i really do not have much idea of the use of RegEx and i now have to mark all lines where a .pdf file is used bute i dont have to mark the lines where the filename zusammenfassung.pdf is used.

Is there a way to do this with RegEx?

Any help appreciated.

Greets from Germany and a happy weekend to all of you,

Andreas (Andy)

guy038

Hello, @andreas-soraru and All,

From your title, I would say :

Open your file in N++
Open the Mark dialog ( Ctrl + M )
Untick all box options
SEARCH (?xi-s) ^ (?! .* zusammenfassung.pdf ) .* \b \S+ \. pdf \b
Check the Bookmark line and the Wrap around options
Select the Regular expression search mode
Click on the Mark All button
Then, either :
- Click on the Copy Marked Text button
- Click on the Search > Bookmark > Copy Bookmarked Lines
Open a new tab
Paste the .pdf filenames or the complete lines in this new tab

Best Regards

guy038

Andreas Soraru

@guy038 Thanks a lot … that was exactly what i was looking for … without such good knowledge of RegEx i would never got that working. Thanks a lot, greets from Germany and a good day,

Andreas (Andy)

Alan Kilborn

My first thought was this would be a good application of this technique:

What I DON’T want(*SKIP)(*F)|What I DO want

This was discussed HERE and probably some other places, too.

Anyway, for the current problem, try this:

Find what: (?-s)(?:zusammenfassung\.pdf(*SKIP)(*F)|\w+?\.pdf)
Search mode: Regular expression

guy038

Hi, @andreas-soraru, @alan-kilborn and All,

Ah… yes @alan-kilborn. Excellent example of the power of backtracking control verbs ( (*SKIP) , (*F), ... ) !

And I think that a final version could be :

SEARCH (?xi) zusammenfassung \. pdf (?= \s ) (*SKIP) (*F) | \S+ \. pdf (?= \s )

Notes :

No need for the No single line modifier (?-s), as this regex does not contain any regex dot character !
I preferred to add the (?=\s) look-ahead structure, after the strings pdf, to be sure that we search for true PDF files

You may test this new version against the text below :

This is Test.PDF and TEST2.pdf files
Example.pdf : This one is OK
This line does NOT contain portable file name
NOT searched : bad.pdf---123
A file zusammenfassunge.pdf
The zusaMMENFASSung.pdf file
This is the Test.PDFTEST2.pdf file
The zusammenfassung.pdf---456 file
This is my last file.pdf
A special 123zusammenfassung.pdf456 file
Last.PDF True PDF file

BR

guy038

Alan Kilborn

@guy038 said in Mark all .pdf files except zusammenfassung.pdf using RegEx:

No need for the No single line modifier (?-s)

This is true.
It is in mine because at first I did have a non-escaped . in it…but I changed where I was heading with it.

guy038

Hi, @andreas-soraru, @alan-kilborn and All,

In my previous regex, I used the \S syntax to include the litteral dot as a possible character, in the filename. However, to be rigorous, I should have used this syntax :

SEARCH  (?xi) zusammenfassung \. pdf (?= \s ) (*SKIP) (*F) | [!#$%&'()+,-.;=@\\[\\]^`{}~\w]+ \. pdf (?= \s )

As some characters are forbidden in Windows filenames : \ / : * ? " < > |

BR

guy038

datatraveller1

@guy038 said in Mark all .pdf files except zusammenfassung.pdf using RegEx:

Hello, @andreas-soraru and All,

From your title, I would say :

Open your file in N++

Open the Mark dialog ( Ctrl + M )

Untick all box options

SEARCH (?xi-s) ^ (?! .* zusammenfassung.pdf ) .* \b \S+ \. pdf \b

Check the Bookmark line and the Wrap around options

Select the Regular expression search mode

Click on the Mark All button

Then, either :

Click on the Copy Marked Text button

Click on the Search > Bookmark > Copy Bookmarked Lines

Open a new tab

Paste the .pdf filenames or the complete lines in this new tab

Best Regards

guy038