A little help with a regex (find & replace) ?

pickonedev

Hi!

I don’t know how to use this regex thing… but if someone is kind and know how to help me, I am very thankful.

This is my document

microwave:
  value: initial
  restore: true

kitchen_water_boiler:
  value: initial
  restore: true

bed_motor:
  value: initial
  restore: true

home_away:
  value: initial
  restore: true

bedroom_heater:
  value: initial
  restore: true

And I want to find & replace lines which does not contain any space, as an example, I want from this:

bedroom_heater:
  value: initial
  restore: true

to this

variable_bedroom_heater:
  value: initial
  restore: true

Anyone can help me with this?

Thank you in advance!

guy038

Hello, @pickonedev and All,

OK… but which areas should be replaced ? I mean, do you want to change :

Any line without any space character, with a same string for all ( like variable_bedroom_heater, from your example ) ?
Any line without any space character, with a string with some relation to the original name ( like variable_microwave:, variable_kitchen_water_boiler:, variable_bed_motor:, and so on… ) ?
Any line without any space character, with a string totally different from the original name ( like device_1: instead of microwave:, device_2: instead of kitchen_water_boiler: and so on… ) ?

Best Regards,

guy038

pickonedev

@guy038

Well… take a look at this

home_away:
  value: initial
  restore: true

bedroom_heater:
  value: initial
  restore: true

I want them like this:

variable_home_away:
  value: initial
  restore: true

variable_bedroom_heater:
  value: initial
  restore: true

I want to add “variable_” to every line which does not start with a space or tab.

Till now, I have tried with ^\S but it is not adding variable_, it is only replacing the first character, with variable_

I don’t know regex, I only try things till I have a result, but this is far over me :))

guy038

Hello, @pickonedev and All,

Ah… OK ! In that case, use the following regex S/R :

SEARCH ^[^ \r\n]+$
REPLACE variable_$0
Tick the Wrap around option
Select the Regular espression search mode
Click on the Replace All button

This regex S/R mean :

Seacrh for any complete line, between its beginning ( ^ ) and its end ( $ ) with, at least, one character different from a space char and different from any EOL chars ( \r and \n )
And replace each of these lines with the string variable_, followed with the entire regex search, i.e. $0

BR

guy038

pickonedev

@guy038 Thank you so much.

Now, I have an idea :-D Just for the fun
If I have this:

##############
# Devices Status #
##############

loading:
  value: loading
  restore: true

bathroom_boiler:
  value: initial
  restore: true

and I want to change it to this

##############
# Devices Status #
##############

variable_loading:
  value: loading
  restore: true

variable_bathroom_boiler:
  value: initial
  restore: true

To add “variable_” as I first requested, but if a line starts with # to exclude it

pickonedev

@pickonedev

I done it by myself, having your sample already :-D

With ^[^ #\r\n]+$

Thank youuuuuuu

PeterJones

@pickonedev said in A little help with a regex (find & replace) ?:

I don’t know regex, I only try things till I have a result, but this is far over me

Useful References

pickonedev

@guy038

If I don’t ask too much, can you please help me one more time?
I tried to find and learn by myself but it is far far far over me, this regex… I don’t get it…

Here is a part from the document I have

service: switch.turn_off
  data: {}
  entity_id: switch.sonoff_computer_1

service: switch.turn_off
  data: {}
  entity_id: sonoff_computer_2

I want to add “sensor.variable_” to the lines which starts with "entity_id: " (even if there are spaces in front of it) but not contain the dot character " . "
For example, the document above, should look like this after the change:

service: switch.turn_off
  data: {}
  entity_id: switch.sonoff_computer_1

service: switch.turn_off
  data: {}
  entity_id: **sensor.variable_**sonoff_computer_2

Thank you in advance

PeterJones

@pickonedev said in A little help with a regex (find & replace) ?:

I tried to find and learn by myself but it is far far far over me

When you set out to learn the piano, you should start with “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “London Bridge”, and work your way up through Canon in D to Chopin and Liszt, over years of practice.

The lesson: If you try to start with the more complicated, you will only end up discouraging yourself. Sometimes, with regex, it’s better to get a portion of it working, and then do the rest manually (so maybe try to search for something more generic that you can find, then use your own eyes to do the rest. Then, after more experimentation, you can figure out how to do more and more, until you can come up with pretty powerful regex.

I want to add “sensor.variable_” to the lines which starts with "entity_id: " (even if there are spaces in front of it) but not contain the dot character " . "

Okay, this isn’t a full concerto, but it is an intermediate etude.

Break it into smaller chunks for developing:

line starts with entity_id: even if there are spaces => ^(\h*entity_id:)
- ^ = line starts with
- \h* = 0 or more spaces
- entity_id: = literal text
- (...) = we want to save this chunk for later; it will be group#1 and referenced later as $1
but the rest of the line does not contain the dot character => ([^.\r\n]+)$
- (...) = save the rest of the line as group#2 (later called $2)
- [^...] = make a “negative” character class, to define a list of characters that you don’t want to match
- [^.\r\n] = don’t want to match a literal period, or the CR or LF newline characters
- + = match 1 or more of the thing that came before – so in this case, “match 1 or more characters that are not period or newline characters”
- $ = match the end of the line
- thus, the only thing allowed for this portion of the search are characters that are not period or newline, and that extends all the way to the end of the line. It will thus match if the line doesn’t have a dot, and won’t match if it does.
Put it together: you want the first group, followed by a space, followed by the second group: ^(\h*entity_id:) ([^.\r\n]+)$
Replacement: you want to replace it with the first group, then a space, then the new text, then the second group: $1 sensor.variable_$2

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Useful References

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