Community
    • Login

    Find and replace line not starting with pattern and copy text from previous line

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General Discussion
    16 Posts 5 Posters 1.9k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • PeterJonesP
      PeterJones @nitin jain
      last edited by PeterJones

      @nitin-jain ,

      I came up with something that mostly works, except for on the line after the đŸ‘đŸ». I haven’t figured out why that is messing up my regex:

      • FIND = (?-s)^(\x5B.*?\x5D.*?:\h*).*$\R\K(?!\x5B)
      • REPLACE = $1
      • SEARCH MODE = regular expression
      • REPLACE ALL multiple times, until it’s really all done

      The line after the thumbs-up has difficulty because, as @Alan-Kilborn found a couple years back, such chat logs will occasionally have the U+200E LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK peppered throughout
 and that photo line contains two instances. So before running the regex I showed, also replace \x{200E} with empty 
 or I’d suggest [\x{200B}-\x{200F}\x{202A}-\x{202F}] with empty (which will get rid of other zero-width characters).

      So run the zero-width replacement first, then REPLACE ALL multiple times on the first one I shared until all the lines have that. (If your longest block is four lines that don’t start with [, you will have to REPLACE ALL four times)

      Ahamed Nawas AliA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
      • guy038G
        guy038
        last edited by guy038

        Hello, @nitin-jain, @peterjones and All,

        Oh
 Peter beats me at it ! Here is my solution, quite similar !

        If you are sure that all the dates are in increasing order, simply use the following regex S/R :

        • Open the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )

        • SEARCH (?-s)^(\[.+\]).+\R\K(?=\w)

        • REPLACE \1$0\x20

        • Tick the Wrap around option

        • Select the Regular repression search mode

        • Click several times on the Replace All button, till you see the message 0 occurrences were replaced in entire file

        So, from the INPUT text :

        [25/11/19, 16:26:33] Roger: Not received mail
        [25/11/19, 16:27:04] Niks: Refresh
        [25/11/19, 16:28:12] Roger: Plz send again
        [25/11/19, 16:28:55] Niks: ok sent
        [25/11/19, 16:29:14] Roger: Received ok thanks
        [25/11/19, 16:29:38] Niks: đŸ‘đŸ»
        ‎[26/11/19, 13:20:31] Roger: ‎<attached: 00000110-PHOTO-2019-11-26-13-20-31.jpg>
        [26/11/19, 13:20:57] Roger: For 60000 units
        balance trf 59160
        [26/11/19, 13:30:55] Niks: Units Batch code
        SEGX-TWHB5Z 2500
        3CRD-QAMXD9 2500
        E4ZY-7HNK35 2500
        SGMV-FR4P5Y 2500
        [26/11/19, 13:32:55] Roger: Ok thanks
        

        you’ll get the expected OUTPUT result :

        [25/11/19, 16:26:33] Roger: Not received mail
        [25/11/19, 16:27:04] Niks: Refresh
        [25/11/19, 16:28:12] Roger: Plz send again
        [25/11/19, 16:28:55] Niks: ok sent
        [25/11/19, 16:29:14] Roger: Received ok thanks
        [25/11/19, 16:29:38] Niks: đŸ‘đŸ»
        ‎[26/11/19, 13:20:31] Roger: ‎<attached: 00000110-PHOTO-2019-11-26-13-20-31.jpg>
        [26/11/19, 13:20:57] Roger: For 60000 units
        [26/11/19, 13:20:57] balance trf 59160
        [26/11/19, 13:30:55] Niks: Units Batch code
        [26/11/19, 13:30:55] SEGX-TWHB5Z 2500
        [26/11/19, 13:30:55] 3CRD-QAMXD9 2500
        [26/11/19, 13:30:55] E4ZY-7HNK35 2500
        [26/11/19, 13:30:55] SGMV-FR4P5Y 2500
        [26/11/19, 13:32:55] Roger: Ok thanks
        

        Best regards,

        guy038

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • guy038G
          guy038
          last edited by guy038

          Hi, all,

          I suppose I find out a bug, in our Boost regex engine !

          Let’s take this simple example tet :

          []xyz
          ‎[]xyz
          []xyz
          ABC
          []xyz
          DEF
          

          Now, the four regexes below, should look for the literal string [] beginning a line, followed with any non-null string and its line-ending chars, ONLY IF not followed with a leading [ symbol !

          (?-s)^\\[\\].+\R(?!\\[)

          (?-s)^\\[\\].+\r\n(?!\\[)

          (?-s)^\x5b\x5d.+\R(?!\x5b)

          (?-s)^\x5b\x5d.+\r\n(?!\x5b)


          Thus, it should only match the txo lines, below :

          • The []xyz line before the string ABC

          • The []xyz line before the string DEF

          But, unfortunately, it also matches the first line []xyz ???

          Am I wrong in any way, in this matter ?

          BR

          guy038

          Alan KilbornA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Alan KilbornA
            Alan Kilborn @guy038
            last edited by

            @guy038 said in Find and replace line not starting with pattern and copy text from previous line:

            But, unfortunately, it also matches the first line []xyz ???
            Am I wrong in any way, in this matter ?

            When I copy -n-paste your black box data, there is an LRM in it, which seems to cause your erroneous match!

            07559618-c16f-4265-94b8-6f9f5f27d0d1-image.png

            PeterJonesP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
            • PeterJonesP
              PeterJones @Alan Kilborn
              last edited by

              @alan-kilborn said in Find and replace line not starting with pattern and copy text from previous line:

              there is an LRM in it, which seems to cause your erroneous match!

              Indeed. I was originally going to ask Guy why my regex wasn’t working with the supplied data (the same question Guy asked us), when I happened to left arrow from the [ and stayed on that same line! That told me there was a hidden character, which is why I ran the reveal-hidden-characters script from the old conversation, and I saw the infamous LRM – which is why I added the paragraph to tell @nitin-jain to do the zero-width search/replace before doing the main search/replace.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • guy038G
                guy038
                last edited by guy038

                Hi, @nitin-jain, @peterjones, @alan-kilborn and All,

                Ah ah ! Alan, I, first, didn’t understand why you had the LRM sigle in the second line of my text. My second thought was that you created a Python script to make all these fancy Unicode format characters clearly visible ! But, luckily, marking any \x{200e} character did the trick and showed me a thin red mark when this special char is present !


                So, @nitin-jain, as @peterjones said, use this simple regex S/R, below, to get rid of these format characters !

                SEARCH [\x{200B}-\x{200F}\x{202A}-\x{202F}]

                REPLACE Leave EMPTY

                However, verify that this operation does not break down your text in any way ! I personally saw this case, while pasting Unicode characters from a long list, produced by this excellent and valuable site, regarding Unicode :

                https://r12a.github.io/uniview/


                Now, I’m pleased to note that there is no bug of our Boost regex engine, in this matter, as that special LRM char is quite a character different from a [ symbol !

                BR

                guy038

                Alan KilbornA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • Alan KilbornA
                  Alan Kilborn @guy038
                  last edited by

                  @guy038 said in Find and replace line not starting with pattern and copy text from previous line:

                  Alan, 
 you created a Python script to make all these fancy Unicode format characters clearly visible

                  Well, yes, I did. :-)

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Ahamed Nawas AliA
                    Ahamed Nawas Ali @PeterJones
                    last edited by

                    @PeterJones I have a similar scenario where i have 10K lines i need to fix, is there any shorter way? Also, is there any way we can unmark the line number for those identified lines which does not start with a pattern.

                    Example: My line number starts with datetime (2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00)

                    And can i make all these lines which does not start with “2021-” without line numbers provided by notepad++?

                    PeterJonesP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • PeterJonesP
                      PeterJones @Ahamed Nawas Ali
                      last edited by

                      @Ahamed-Nawas-Ali said in Find and replace line not starting with pattern and copy text from previous line:

                      is there any shorter way?

                      The way described above is reasonably short. I am not sure what “improvement” you think is necessary (or even possible).

                      is there any way we can unmark the line number for those identified lines which does not start with a pattern.

                      Sorry, I don’t understand how that’s different than the original question.

                      You’ll have to give a better example – use the </> button on the toolbar when you are writing the post to create pairs of ```, between which you can paste your actual data:, something like

                      **data I have**:
                      ```
                      [1234] abcxyz
                      next line
                      [5678] pdq
                      aonther
                      ```
                      
                      **desired data after transformation**
                      ```
                      [1234] abcxyz
                      [1234] next line
                      [5678] pdq
                      [5678] aonther
                      ```
                      

                      

                      This would be rendered as the following, so we know exactly what your “before” and “after” data needs to be.
                      —
                      data I have:

                      [1234] abcxyz
                      next line
                      [5678] pdq
                      aonther
                      

                      desired data after transformation

                      [1234] abcxyz
                      [1234] next line
                      [5678] pdq
                      [5678] aonther
                      

                      ----

                      Useful References

                      • Please Read Before Posting
                      • Template for Search/Replace Questions
                      • Formatting Forum Posts
                      • Notepad++ Online User Manual: Searching/Regex
                      • FAQ: Where to find other regular expressions (regex) documentation
                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • Ahamed Nawas AliA
                        Ahamed Nawas Ali
                        last edited by

                        @PeterJones, Thanks for your reply. I am sorry, I am new to this platform.

                        Example scenario i am dealing with is with Date_Time Sender Recepients Message delimited with ‘Tab’

                        2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	Learning
                        Selection
                        B. Home
                        Webinar 
                        IDB
                        20214980
                        202216
                        2021-09-15T11:19:14+00:00	Ahamed Ali	Nawas	Thanks!
                        

                        And i should make it like below

                        2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	Learning
                        2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	Selection
                        2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	B. Home
                        2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	Webinar 
                        2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	IDB
                        2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	20214980
                        2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	202216
                        2021-09-15T11:19:14+00:00	Ahamed Ali	Nawas	Thanks!
                        
                        Alan KilbornA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Alan KilbornA
                          Alan Kilborn @Ahamed Nawas Ali
                          last edited by

                          @Ahamed-Nawas-Ali said :

                          Example scenario i am dealing with is with Date_Time Sender Recepients Message delimited with ‘Tab’

                          For this one, I considered the following to be enough to distinguish a timestamp line leader: 2021-09-15T

                          Thus I tried (based upon @guy038’s solution earlier in this thread):

                          Find: (?-s)^(\d{4}-\d\d-\d\dT.+\t).+\R\K(?!\d{4}-\d\d-\d\dT)
                          Replace: ${1}
                          Options: Wrap around, Regular expression
                          Action: Replace All (multiple times, until no more changes occur)

                          And after several Replace All presses, I obtained the following:

                          2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	Learning
                          2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	Selection
                          2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	B. Home
                          2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	Webinar 
                          2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	IDB
                          2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	20214980
                          2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	202216
                          2021-09-15T11:19:14+00:00	Ahamed Ali	Nawas	Thanks!
                          2021-09-15T11:19:14+00:00	Ahamed Ali	Nawas	
                          

                          Note that the last line of this output is “extra” and should be manually removed.

                          Ahamed Nawas AliA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • Ahamed Nawas AliA
                            Ahamed Nawas Ali @Alan Kilborn
                            last edited by

                            @Alan-Kilborn I tried with below in order to keep clicking on the buttons to replace everything and it worked in removing the line numbers however the strings are concatenated.

                            Find box: \n([^2021-])
                            Replace box: $1

                            Result:

                            2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	Nawas	Ram Kumar,Ahamed Ali	LearningSelectionB. HomeWebinar IDB20214980202216
                            2021-09-15T11:19:14+00:00	Ahamed Ali	Nawas	Thanks!
                            

                            And the results are messed up a bit. Anyway, thank you so much for the time stamp line leader and for now, i will have to use it anyway to avoid further delay in my project! Thanks @guy038 & @PeterJones for your guidance! Greatly appreciate your guidance to this community! God bless you all!

                            Alan KilbornA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • Alan KilbornA
                              Alan Kilborn @Ahamed Nawas Ali
                              last edited by

                              @Ahamed-Nawas-Ali said:

                              \n([^2021-])

                              That’s totally wrong for what you’re wanting
 in several ways

                              But since you seem to be in a hurry
and you can’t reasonably do anything with regex in a hurry
I won’t explain and I’ll just wish you good luck.

                              Ahamed Nawas AliA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • Ahamed Nawas AliA
                                Ahamed Nawas Ali @Alan Kilborn
                                last edited by

                                @Alan-Kilborn Sorry Alan! I know i am wrong with that “\n([^2021-])” as it will spoil my delimiter as well and there could be some other issues as well. Its true that one can’t learn Regex in a hurry! I am using yours snippet and thank you for that!

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • guy038G
                                  guy038
                                  last edited by guy038

                                  Hello, @ahamed-nawas-ali, @peterjones, @alan-kilborn and All,

                                  @ahamed-nawas-ali, I’ll use a similar search regex to the @alan-kilborn’s one !


                                  For example , given this INPUT text , below :

                                  2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	ATX	Field3	Guy	Field5	Learning
                                  Selection
                                  B. Home
                                  Webinar 
                                  IDB
                                  20214980
                                  2021420214202216
                                  2021-09-15T11:19:14+00:00	BYQ	Field3	Alan	Field5	Test
                                  B. Home
                                  Webinar 
                                  IDB
                                  20214980
                                  2021-09-16T15:07:46+00:00	ATX	Field3	Peter	Field5	Try
                                  Selection
                                  B. Home
                                  Webinar 
                                  IDB
                                  20214980
                                  2021420214202216
                                  Blablah
                                  OK
                                  END of story
                                  
                                  • Open the Replace dialog ( Ctrl+H )

                                  • Uncheck all box options

                                  • Search (?-s)^(\d{4}-.+\t).+\R\K(?!\d{4}-|\R|\z)

                                  • Replace $1

                                  • If necessary, check the Wrap around option

                                  • Select the Regular expression search mode

                                  • Click, exclusively, on the Replace All button, several times, till the message Replace All: 0 occurrences were replaced... is displayed !

                                  At the end, you should get this expected OUTPUT text :

                                  2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	ATX	Field3	Guy	Field5	Learning
                                  2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	ATX	Field3	Guy	Field5	Selection
                                  2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	ATX	Field3	Guy	Field5	B. Home
                                  2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	ATX	Field3	Guy	Field5	Webinar 
                                  2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	ATX	Field3	Guy	Field5	IDB
                                  2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	ATX	Field3	Guy	Field5	20214980
                                  2021-09-14T21:10:55+00:00	ATX	Field3	Guy	Field5	2021420214202216
                                  2021-09-15T11:19:14+00:00	BYQ	Field3	Alan	Field5	Test
                                  2021-09-15T11:19:14+00:00	BYQ	Field3	Alan	Field5	B. Home
                                  2021-09-15T11:19:14+00:00	BYQ	Field3	Alan	Field5	Webinar 
                                  2021-09-15T11:19:14+00:00	BYQ	Field3	Alan	Field5	IDB
                                  2021-09-15T11:19:14+00:00	BYQ	Field3	Alan	Field5	20214980
                                  2021-09-16T15:07:46+00:00	ATX	Field3	Peter	Field5	Try
                                  2021-09-16T15:07:46+00:00	ATX	Field3	Peter	Field5	Selection
                                  2021-09-16T15:07:46+00:00	ATX	Field3	Peter	Field5	B. Home
                                  2021-09-16T15:07:46+00:00	ATX	Field3	Peter	Field5	Webinar 
                                  2021-09-16T15:07:46+00:00	ATX	Field3	Peter	Field5	IDB
                                  2021-09-16T15:07:46+00:00	ATX	Field3	Peter	Field5	20214980
                                  2021-09-16T15:07:46+00:00	ATX	Field3	Peter	Field5	2021420214202216
                                  2021-09-16T15:07:46+00:00	ATX	Field3	Peter	Field5	Blablah
                                  2021-09-16T15:07:46+00:00	ATX	Field3	Peter	Field5	OK
                                  2021-09-16T15:07:46+00:00	ATX	Field3	Peter	Field5	END of story
                                  

                                  Voila :-))


                                  Notes :

                                  • As you can see, the number of columns, before the last one, is not a problem !

                                  • From beginning of line ( ^ ), the regex looks for a line beginning with 4 digits, followed with a dash character (\d{4}- ) and anything else till the last tabulation ( .+\t ) of current line

                                  • This search, so far, is memorized and stored as group 1

                                  • After the last field of the line and the line-break ( .+\R ), all the matched string is discarded ( \K )

                                  • Thus, the regex engine is now searching for a zero-length string, at beginning of the next line, but ONLY IF this next line does not begin with :

                                    • 4 digits and a dash char

                                    • An other line-break

                                    • The very end of current file

                                  • When this assertion is true, it just inserts the group 1 contents at the very beginning of current line

                                  Best Regards

                                  guy038

                                  P.S. :

                                  If the condition to detect the header lines seems not restrictive enough, you may use this alternate search regex :

                                  • Search (?-is)^(20\d\d-\d\d-\d\dT.+\t).+\R\K(?!20\d\d-\d\d-\d\dT|\R|\z)
                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • First post
                                    Last post
                                  The Community of users of the Notepad++ text editor.
                                  Powered by NodeBB | Contributors