Search and replace question

Tom Dirks

Could you please help me with the following search-and-replace problem I am having?

I am editing an html file and need to delete many of the hyperlinks.

Here is the data I currently have (“before” data):

<a name="pgfId-659225"></a><a name="TMS AEO alt_remote_control"></a><a name="alt_remote_control"></a><a name="TMS alt_remote_control"></a>alt_remote_control</h6>

Here is how I would like that data to look (“after” data):

<a name="pgfId-659225"></a><a name="alt_remote_control"></a><a name="TMS alt_remote_control"></a>alt_remote_control</h6>

In other words, I want to delete the hyperlink whose name begins with “TMS AEO” and leave the other hyperlinks on that line intact.

To accomplish this, I have tried using the following Find/Replace expressions and settings

Find What = <a name="TMS AEO .+</a>
Replace With = ``
Search Mode = REGULAR EXPRESSION
Dot Matches Newline = NOT CHECKED

Unfortunately, this did not produce the output I desired, and I’m not sure why. It ended up selecting all of the hyperlinks on that line up to the last “</a>”. Could you please help me understand what went wrong and help me find the solution?

PeterJones

@Tom-Dirks said in Search and replace question:

<a name="TMS AEO .+</a>
Unfortunately, this did not produce the output I desired, and I’m not sure why. It ended up selecting all of the hyperlinks on that line up to the last “</a>”

So very close! Great job

The .+ is greedy, so it will match as many single characters as it can, which can include single characters that make up the hyperlinks between. If you make it non-greedy by adding a ? to make that .+?, it will stop the match at the first </a> instead of the last </a>: Thus, <a name="TMS AEO .+?</a> should work for you

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Tom Dirks

@PeterJones That worked! Thank you very much.