Search for 6 figure string but exclude certain strings

andy souter

I have an application that produces objects files. Each object has a .mtl text file. This .mtl files contains a 6 figure hexcode defining a colour. The application generates random colour hexcodes ie. c2cf1a. Therefore I want find and change all hexcodes with numbers in them to a defined 6 figure string.

An example line of text - map_Kd baked_303030_brick.dds

Therefore I want to Find all instances of 6 figure string with numbers in it i.e c2cf1af

and replace with a defined string i.e. aaaaaa

I am tring to use Notepad++ to do this but finding the regex expressions hard to understand.

Having found the solution using \w(6)_ as the 6 figure string always ends with an underscore. this works very well however I now want to extend the search to provide what I originally wanted i.e. the 6 figure hex code follwed by underscore, but now to allow the search to ignore any of the following:

aaaaaa bbbbbb cccccc dddddd eeeeee ffffff

Is there a fairly easy solution to this?

Thank you.

Alan Kilborn

@andy-souter said in Search for 6 figure string but exclude certain strings:

An example line of text - map_Kd baked_303030_brick.dds

I see no c2cf1a in that.
I mean, crap, we could guess that you’re talking about the 303030 but…c’mon.

andy souter

@Alan-Kilborn It was what I said, an example line of text. The hex codes that I want to indentify are any 6 figure combination of 0 to 7 and a to f. The example solution I gave of \w(6)_ does what I want and identifies all the 6 figure hex code strings but I want to exclude the strings aaaaaa bbbbbb cccccc dddddd eeeeee and ffffff.

Coises

@andy-souter said in Search for 6 figure string but exclude certain strings:

ignore any of the following:

aaaaaa bbbbbb cccccc dddddd eeeeee ffffff

Is there a fairly easy solution to this?

There is. Use a negative look-ahead:

I’ll leave it as an exercise for you to read and understand the documentation I linked — when you do, you’ll know how to add that to the expression you already have.

andy souter

@Coises Many Thanks I will report back with how I get on.

andy souter

@andy-souter Yes, found out how to make it work. Excludes the strings i want excluded, but getting new ones not excluded that I did not expect. But I now have a way forward. Thanks for your help.