Proper syntax for \s (spaces) in replace expression
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@Hank-K said in Proper syntax for \s (spaces) in replace expression:
Still clueless about the \x20
https://npp-user-manual.org/docs/searching/#match-by-character-code
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@Coises said in Proper syntax for \s (spaces) in replace expression:
( - $1)
I previously tried the parentheses but no joy there?
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@Hank-K said in Proper syntax for \s (spaces) in replace expression:
@Coises said in Proper syntax for \s (spaces) in replace expression:
( - $1)
I previously tried the parentheses but no joy there?
All I can say is, try it in Notepad++ rather than in that website. None of the language flavors there appear to be an entirely accurate reproduction of the find and replace syntax used in Notepad++.
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@Coises said in Proper syntax for \s (spaces) in replace expression:
All I can say is, try it in Notepad++ rather than in that website. None of the language flavors there appear to be an entirely accurate reproduction of the find and replace syntax used in Notepad++.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner !!
Works in Notepad++.
Lights still dim regarding \x … maybe in future it will become brighter.
FYI: Will do all future testing directly in Notepad++
Thanks for hangin with me through my regex growth … lol
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@Hank-K said in Proper syntax for \s (spaces) in replace expression:
Lights still dim regarding \x … maybe in future it will become brighter.
\x just means “the next two characters are going to be two hexadecimal digits that represent the bit pattern of the character I want.”
Hexadecimal 20 is the bit pattern for an ASCII space. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#Character_set
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@Hank-K said in Proper syntax for \s (spaces) in replace expression:
( - $1)
I previously tried the parentheses but no joy there?
Joy: To use parentheses in Replace with: field, you must escape them, e.g.
\(and\), -
@Hank-K said in Proper syntax for \s (spaces) in replace expression:
Find: \s{3}-\s([\S]) Replc: - $1Needing to replace 3 spaces preceding the hyphen with 2 spaces. Searched but no joy in finding how you express \s in the Replace with: instead of using actual white spaces.
Unfortunately there are only two ways to put a space in the
replacepart of a regular expression. Those are an actual space like what you used or the sequence\x20. Shortcuts such as\sand\x20{2}don’t work in the replacement part.Now, there something that could work for you which is
Find:\x20(?=\x20\x20-)
Replace: nothingIn the find part we are looking for a single space followed by a lookahead that has two spaces and the hyphen.
The replacement part only affects the single leading space and won’t replace the pattern that is inside the lookahead.Do a search for
\x20(?=\x20\x20-). You will see that the first space becomes selected and the cursor is at the end of it. The search does not seem to find the following two spaces and the hyphen but you will discover that it is including them as part of the overall match. You can experiment with both this expression and with the your to get a better understanding of how lookahead works.\x20is the internal code for a space in both ASCII and Unicode. You will often see\x20in regular expressions as it’s easy to miss a space, particularly at the very beginning or end of the expression.Do a search for
\x20in Notepad++ and you’ll see that it finds spaces.Don’t use
\sunless you also intend to find tabs plus a rather long list of other characters such as form feeds.\stends to match anything you can’t see… -
Hello, @hank-k, @alan-kilborn, @peterjones, @coises and All,
And here is my solution :
SEARCH
\x20{3}(?=-)REPLACE
\x20\x20OR
SEARCH
\x20{3}(?=-)REPLACE
( )There are two
spacechars between the parentheses !Best Regards,
guy038
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@guy038 said in Proper syntax for \s (spaces) in replace expression:
REPLACE ( )
There are two space chars between the parentheses !
Tricky. :-)
The parens are only used because the OP was “uncomfortable” with whitespace he couldn’t really see in the Replace with box.
