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    • guy038G
      guy038
      last edited by guy038

      Hello, @alan-kilborn and All,

      I’m really sorry, because it’s just my fault and you wouldn’t have had to look for an alternative solution :-( Indeed, the regex S/R, that I gave in my post, below, does contains an error which is not important when using the Notepad++ Replace dialog, but which seems critical when you run a Python script, involving regexes !

      https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/12710/marked-text-manipulation/8

      I suppose that this fact should be related to this “small” point, located at the end of the description of the editor.rereplace helper method :

      http://npppythonscript.sourceforge.net/docs/latest/scintilla.html?highlight=editor.rereplace#Editor.rereplace

      An small point to note, is that the replacements are first searched, and then all replacements are made. This is done for performance and reliability reasons. Generally this will have no side effects, however there may be cases where it makes a difference. (Author’s note: If you have such a case, please post a note on the forums such that it can be added to the documentation, or corrected).


      To understand the problem , let’s just use the beginning of your example text, pasted in a new N++ tab

      Alice Carol Alan Bob Ted
      Ted Bob
      Bob Carol Ted
      Ted Carol
      Alice Carol
      Alice Bob
      

      If my generic regex S/R, below, with your regex choice (Bob|Ted) is used, against this text :

      SEARCH (?s)^.*?(Bob|Ted)|(?s).*\z

      REPLACE ?1\1\r\n

      We get, after a click on the Replace All button or several clicks on the Replace button, and with the Wrap around option ticked, the following correct result :

      Bob
      Ted
      Ted
      Bob
      Bob
      Ted
      Ted
      Bob
      

      Note that I use the ^ assertion which forces the regex engine to search a range of chars beginning a line. Of course, in case of replacement, no trouble at all ! Indeed, due to the \r\n syntax, any match \1 is rewritten with a line-break. So, the next search, with the (?s) mode, automatically matches right after that line-break, added by the replacement !

      Now, let’s get back the initial text ( with Ctrl + Z ) and let’s suppose that we just want to trace the different matches of that regex S/R, using the Find Next button only. In that case, we get only 2 matches !!??

      • Obviously, the first match is :
      Alice Carol Alan Bob
      

      But the second and final match is :

       Ted
      Ted Bob
      Bob Carol Ted
      Ted Carol
      Alice Carol
      Alice Bob
      

      Why ? Well, after the first match, the caret location is right after the word Bob of the first line. So, it cannot match the string space + Ted because this string should begin the current line, due to, both, the ^ symbol and the grouping parentheses

      As the first alternative (?s)^.*?(Bob|Ted) cannot match, at this location, the regex engine tries the other alternative (?s).*\z, which, of course, matches all the remaining characters of current file, beginning with space + Ted of the 1st line !!

      BTW, I don’t understand, Alan why you got a match Alice. Indeed, when running :

      editor.rereplace(r'(?s)^.*?(Bob|Ted)|(?s).*\z', r'?1\1\r\n')
      

      I personally only get the forename Bob, which is the first word matched of the text !


      Now, it’s easy to imagine the correct regex S/R to use : it should not contain any ^ assertion and be as below :

      SEARCH (?s).*?(Bob|Ted)|(?s).*\z

      REPLACE ?1\1\r\n ( or ?1\1\n for an Unix file )

      This time, if you click, successively, on the Find Next button, you’ll be able to see the different matches of the search regex !

      And, I did verify that the one-line script, below, without the ^ symbol, gives the expected text ;-))

      editor.rereplace(r'(?s).*?(Bob|Ted)|(?s).*\z', r'?1\1\r\n')
      

      Best Regards

      guy038

      Two more points :

      • Your new regex S/R :
      editor.rereplace(r'(?s)(Bob|Ted)|(?:.+?(?=(?1)))|(?:.+\z)', r'?1\1\r\n')
      

      works correctly because it does not contain any ^ assertion !

      but, would you had added the ^ symbol, like below :

      editor.rereplace(r'(?s)(Bob|Ted)|(?:^.+?(?=(?1)))|(?:.+\z)', r'?1\1\r\n')
      

      it would had changed all your multi-lines example text as :

      Bob
      
      • The lesson of that story is :

      If you can properly visualize the different matches of a regex expression, as you expect to, when using the Find Next button, it’s likely that any replacement process, run from within a S/R script command, should work nicely, too ;-))

      Alan KilbornA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
      • Alan KilbornA
        Alan Kilborn @guy038
        last edited by

        @guy038

        Thank you for the further analysis.

        I’m really sorry, because it’s just my fault and you wouldn’t have had to look for an alternative solution

        No worries at all! :-)

        I don’t understand, Alan why you got a match (of only) “Alice”. I personally only get the forename “Bob”

        Indeed! I guess “something happened” because if I re-run it now the same way I for sure get “Bob” as well! Sorry for that confusion.

        Other comments:

        I did not realize (obviously) that it was merely a case of a problem with the ^ in the original expression. :-(
        I totally jumped in to an almost wholly different solution, based upon something related I was working on.

        The lesson of that story is…

        Nice to know!

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

          Hello, @alan-kilborn and All,

          So, as the result of our discussion :

          This old post    https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/12710/marked-text-manipulation/8

          have been updated    https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/19189/need-a-copy-marked-lines-feature/7

          Cheers,

          guy038

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • Alan KilbornA
            Alan Kilborn
            last edited by

            Semi-related info:

            Part of this current thread is about how to copy text that one has marked via Marking that requires use of a PythonScript.

            In a POST in another thread, I provide a script that will select text given conditions specified by user input. That selected text can then be copied.

            Similar results thru some different methods; enough to warrant a cross-link, I guess.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • Laura Lucas AldayL
              Laura Lucas Alday
              last edited by

              Can anyone explain quickly how to use the python script? As in which steps I need to do in Notepad++ to run the script.

              PeterJonesP Alan KilbornA 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • PeterJonesP
                PeterJones @Laura Lucas Alday
                last edited by PeterJones

                @Laura-Lucas-Alday

                1. Install PythonScript using Plugins > Plugins Admin
                2. Plugins > Python Script > New Script
                3. Paste the contents and save under someName (whatever name you want)
                4. Plugins > Python Script > Scripts > someName
                5. To add a keyboard shortcut for the script:
                6. Plugins > Python Script > Configuration,
                7. select the someName script and Add to the menu
                8. Restart Notepad++
                9. someName will now be in the main Plugins > Python Script menu, not just in the Scripts submenu
                10. Settings > Shortcut Mapper > Plugin Commands will see the script, and you can assign a keyboard shortcut
                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • Alan KilbornA
                  Alan Kilborn @Laura Lucas Alday
                  last edited by

                  @Laura-Lucas-Alday

                  Peter maybe only made it 99.9999% clear. Perhaps the newbie 0.0001% might still be left wondering…

                  Peter’s step 4 would be how you actually run the script.

                  Be advised that in this particular case, you need to have some red-marked text for the script to operate on (hopefully this part is clear).

                  I think there is an open issue that would make this script’s functionality a native part of Notepad++. I will try to find it…

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                  • Alan KilbornA
                    Alan Kilborn
                    last edited by

                    This may be the issue to which I was referring: https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/6095

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

                      At the time of the earlier discussions, there was no way to copy marked text natively in Notepad++, meaning without resorting to scripting. Now (7.9.1-ish) there is:

                      77ec89fb-3ad9-4602-b8ee-4d574195eebe-image.png

                      Just press the indicated button after you already have marked some text.

                      Note: I have added similar information in this somewhat-related other THREAD.

                      dinkumoilD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • dinkumoilD
                        dinkumoil @Alan Kilborn
                        last edited by

                        @Alan-Kilborn

                        My preferred solution would have been to select all marked text because this provides more flexibility. This way the user could

                        • copy
                        • cut
                        • delete
                        • change

                        the marked search results.

                        To achieve that I wrote the following Lua script (intended to be used with, well, the LuaScript plugin).

                        -- =============================================================================
                        -- Add menu entry to select all items marked by find marks
                        -- =============================================================================
                        
                        npp.AddShortcut("Select Marked", "", function()
                          local indicatorIdx
                          local pos, markStart, markEnd
                          local hasMarkedItems
                        
                          -- Search find marks have indicator number 31
                          SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE = 31
                        
                          -- Remove selection but do not change cursor position
                          editor.Anchor  = editor.CurrentPos
                          hasMarkedItems = false
                        
                          -- Search find mark indicators and select marked text
                          pos = 0
                          
                          while pos < editor.TextLength do
                            if editor:IndicatorValueAt(SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE, pos) == 1 then
                              markStart = editor:IndicatorStart(SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE, pos)
                              markEnd   = editor:IndicatorEnd(SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE, pos)
                        
                              if editor.SelectionEmpty or not editor.MultipleSelection then
                                editor:SetSelection(markEnd, markStart)
                              else
                                editor:AddSelection(markEnd, markStart)
                              end
                        
                              pos            = markEnd
                              hasMarkedItems = true
                            end
                            
                            pos = pos + 1
                          end
                        
                          -- Scroll last selected element into view. This is only because
                          -- Npp/Scintilla will do that anyway when moving the cursor next time
                          if hasMarkedItems then
                            editor:ScrollCaret()
                          end
                        end)
                        

                        After adding this code to the startup.lua file and restarting Notepad++, the plugin’s submenu provides a new entry Select Marked which can be assigned to a keyboard shortcut.

                        Alan KilbornA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                        • Alan KilbornA
                          Alan Kilborn @dinkumoil
                          last edited by

                          @dinkumoil said in Marked text manipulation:

                          select all marked text because this provides more flexibility. This way the user could

                          copy
                          cut
                          delete
                          change

                          That’s a good idea as well, especially for delete and change (although those can be achieved, on a one-off basis, by replace-with-nothing and replace-with something ops).

                          Copy and cut of selected text would jam all of the text together if it were on a selection basis (probably not really useful that way).

                          I noticed this new Copy Marked Text command inserts a line-ending between the individual globs of marked text, which seems to make it useful, although to tell the truth I haven’t had a real application for it myself, yet.

                          dinkumoilD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                          • dinkumoilD
                            dinkumoil @Alan Kilborn
                            last edited by dinkumoil

                            @Alan-Kilborn said in Marked text manipulation:

                            Copy and cut of selected text would jam all of the text together if it were on a selection basis (probably not really useful that way).

                            Yes, you are right. Up to now, I’ve used my script only for deleting and editing the selections. But especially being able to multi-edit all occurences of a search term or overwrite them by multi-paste vastly increases productivity.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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