replace function

Scott Sumner

why the two fields in the dialog are handled differently

I guess there are FOUR real differences:

Find-what box with Windows line endings between lines
Find-what box with Linux line endings between lines
Replace-with box with Windows line endings between lines <-- the true troublesome one
Replace-with box with Linux line endings between lines

Pouemes44

it was not easy for me to succeed too, sometimes i succeed other time i dont succeed, perhaps its because of me i dont know
but notepad++ is a great tool hope it could be a next developement to make this more easy

guy038

Hello, @kat75, @scott-sumner, @claudia-frank, @jim-dailey, @ion-Saliu and All,

First of all, I totally agree to what Scott and Jim said : the Claudia’s contribution to our forum, is really awesome, in a huge lot of domains ! Congratulations for your global insight on technical problems and your inexhaustible availability to all of us !!

And…, @ion-Saliu, no doubt : you certainly have an ego much greater than Donald Trump’s one ! You should have followed that forum, for some time, to realize that you’re just saying stupidities and discourteous things about Claudia. And, when you say :

It makes people waste their time reading her posts, taking her procedures at face value, when, in fact, she fakes the stakes…

I simply think, on the contrary, that we’re just wasting our time reading yours ! Indeed, change your attitude ! If not, as one of the moderators of that site, I could take the responsibility to delete some of your posts…

Well, now, let’s go back to an interesting topic : the last Claudia’s discovery !!

Oh ! A THOUSAND thanks, Claudia, for finding out the solution to paste multi-lines in the Replace dialog :-)))

I did some tests, and AFAIK, it happens that :

Any range of lines, copied, in the Find box, whatever the End of Line character(s) of each line, of that block, will be searched, exactly, with the same line endings. That is to say, for instance, that the text, below :

123 CR LF
456 LF
789 CR

copied in the Find what: box, will not find this other multi-lines text below :

123 CR
456 CR LF
789 LF

Any range of lines, copied, in the Replace with: box, with the Unix end of line LF, exclusively, ( \n ) will replace all the searched text, either mono or multi lines !
It does not depend, too, on the Search mode ( Normal, Extended, or Regular expression ) However, to avoid unpredictable results, it seems sensible to use, preferably, the Normal search mode.
Moreover, beware to always leave the Match whole word only option UNCHECKED, if Normal or Extended mode is set !
IMPORTANT : The Find what: and Replace with: boxes may contain a maximum of 2046 characters. So, once a block of lines selected, either for the Search or the Replace part, just have a glance, at the status bar, to know the size of the selection !

Practically, in Windows files :

UPDATE : Just forget the procedure, below, and jump to my other post, where I propose a more simple method, indeed !

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/13823/replace-function/29

Firstly, change your Replace block of Windows lines into a block of Unix lines :
- Do a normal selection of your Replace block of lines ( Remember : not more than 2046 characters ! )
- Open the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )
- Type \R in the Find what: box
- Type \n, in the Replace with: box
- Check the In selection option ( IMPORTANT )
- Select the Regular expression search mode ( IMPORTANT )
- Click on the Replace All button
- Close the Replace dialog
Do a normal selection of your Search block of Windows lines ( Remember : not more than 2046 characters ! )
Open, again, the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )

=> The searched block is automatically inserted, in the Find what: box

Select and copy your block of Unix lines, which will replace the searched text ( CTRL + C )
Paste this block, in the Replace with: box ( Ctrl + V )
Choose, preferably, the Normal search mode
Uncheck the Match whole word only option ( IMPORTANT )
Check/Uncheck the Match case ans Wrap around options, as you want
Click, once or several times, on the Replace button or once, only, on the Replace All button

=> The Replace blocks should have replaced the Search blocks :-))

To end with, we have to change all the unique Unix LF characters, \n, in Replace blocks, by the classical Windows End of Line characters ( \r\n )

Open, again, the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )
Type the regex (?<!\r)\n|\r(?!\n), in the Find what: box
Type the regex \r\n, in the Replace with: box
Click on the Wrap around option
Select the Regular expression search mode
Click on the Replace All button

Et voilà !!

Notes

In this last S/R, we look for, either :
- A LF character ( \n ), not preceded by a CR character
- A CR characte ( \r ), not followed by a LF character
And, in replacement, we change this unique End of Line character, by the two Windows line break characters ( \r\n )

Best Regards,

guy038

Claudia Frank

@guy038

Hi Guy,

as usual great info.
I didn’t thought I get the chance, but now comes my time to shorten your eol conversion.
Goto Edit->EOL Conversion-> and choose the appropriate one ;-)

Cheers
Claudia

Ion Saliu

@guy038

You and Claudia Frank are minitrumps: Delusional. Look how Claudia Frank fabricates features in Notepad++ by Photoshopping screenshots to make-believe they are for real!

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/13829/improments-about-notepad-font

Then she Photoshopped that animated gig where she pressed the down-arrow pretending it was the Enter key!

You are hallucinating too. The global replace in Notepad++ does NOT work via copy-and-paste. That’s the reason this thread was opened. That’s the reason why other threads on the same topic were started, including mine:

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/13808/search-replace-of-multiline-text-blocs

So, who’s wasting other members’ time? The likes of you, Guitser, and Claudia Frank, that’s who! Why keep fantasizing that find/replace works via copy-and-paste in Notepad++? I understand early in the game, when we just wondered honestly. Now we know the feature does NOT work as we would like to. I heard the feature worked that way in an earlier version of Notepad++. I can’t attest to that. Every time I tried, the replace function did not work by simply copying-and-pasting, without the extended codes.

As for your “procedure” — that’s overkill! There is a much simpler (and SANER!) solution. It only requires a simple edit of the text to be placed (pasted) in the ‘Replace with’ textbox. Again, resorting to regex is overkill!

And, again, we all here wanted the procedure to work simply by copying-and-pasting in both textboxes.

To the author –
Methinks the problem is caused by the different settings in the ‘Find what’ textbox versus the ‘Replace with’ textbox. Since you work with Windows API, I can tell (from my experience in Visual Basic) that the textbox control has as default ‘Multiline = False’. Maybe you forgot to set property in ‘Replace with’ textbox ‘Multiline = true’. A textbox is a textbox is a textbox. Why should two instances behave differently, unless a setting is different?!

Ion Saliu
“A good man is an axiomatic man; an axiomatic man is a happy man. Be axiomatic!”

guy038

Hi All,

My method, related in my last post, for doing a multi-lines search, followed by a multi-lines replacement, in “Windows” files is, finally, more complicated than it should be. I suppose that it’s because I wrote that post, quite late, yesterday evening !

Today, it just appears to me, that the obvious method is, simply :

Open your “Windows” file
Change it, into an “Unix” file, with the menu option Edit > EOL Conversion > Unix (LF)
Do an normal selection of the multi-lines Search text to look for
Open the Replace dialog ( CTRL + H )

=> The Search block is automatically inserted, in the Find what: box

Do a normal selection, too, of your multi-lines Replacement text
Copy that selection in the clipboard ( Ctrl + C )
Paste this Replacement block in the Replace with: box ( Ctrl + V )
Choose, preferably, the Normal search mode
Uncheck the Match whole word only option ( IMPORTANT )
Check/Uncheck the Match case ans Wrap around options, as you want
Click, once or several times, on the Replace button or once, only, on the Replace All button

=> The Replacement blocks should have replaced all the Search blocks :-))

Finally, go back to the original state of your document, performing the menu option Edit > EOL Conversion > Windows (CR LF)
Save your modified file

This way is more coherent, isn’t it ?

Cheers,

guy038

P.S. :

On 05/21, I added a link for a multi-lines replacement of a multi-lines text, in an HTML file, generated by @claudia-frank, with Npp++ v7.3.3, on a Windows 10 operating system. Thanks, Claudia, for this demonstration !

https://webmshare.com/m888e

It shows the simplified procedure, to do these “specific” search/replacement, as I mentioned, above !

Parpaluck

@guy038

Your procedure doesn’t work with my HTML files. They were created in a dedicated HTML editor, Windows OS, various versions beginning Windows 2000. The ‘EOL Conversion’ is grayed out for Unix (LF).

Search/Replace in Notepad++EOLConversion

That being said, I found an easier procedure to replace multiline text in Notepad++, ‘Extended’.

Select the multiline bloc to be replaced. Press Ctrl+H; the ‘Find what’ textbox is populated automatically.
Copy the multiline text to replace with; e.g.

<UL>
<li> layers of data analysis as in the mainstream LotWon software - frequency groups only;
<li> the skips reports show correctly for analyses greater than 1000 past drawings - yes, lotto numbers can skip sometimes over 1000 draws in the same position!
<li> June – September 2016 — Total winnings pick-4: $5,000 * 8 = $40,000. ROI (return on investment): 1724%. This must be the most efficient lottery strategy in history!
<li> The best way to apply this super lottery strategy: Instead of playing the strategy one at a time (layer by layer), play the strategies for all 6 layers at the same time.
</UL>

Open a new Notepad++ file (Ctrl+N).
Next, write the Windows EOL codes:
\r\n
Recopy the text to replace with and paste it; copy \r\n; paste \r\n at the end of each true line:

<UL>\r\n
<li> layers of data analysis as in the mainstream LotWon software - frequency groups only;\r\n
<li> the skips reports show correctly for analyses greater than 1000 past drawings - yes, lotto numbers can skip sometimes over 1000 draws in the same position!\r\n
<li> June – September 2016 — Total winnings pick-4: $5,000 * 8 = $40,000. ROI (return on investment): 1724%. This must be the most efficient lottery strategy in history!\r\n
<li> The best way to apply this super lottery strategy: Instead of playing the strategy one at a time (layer by layer), play the strategies for all 6 layers at the same time.\r\n
</UL>\r\n

Go to the end of every \r\n code and press Delete; a single, long line is created:

<UL>\r\n<li> layers of data analysis as in the mainstream LotWon software - frequency groups only;\r\n
<li> the skips reports show correctly for analyses greater than 1000 past drawings - yes, lotto numbers can skip sometimes over 1000 draws in the same position!\r\n<li> June – September 2016 — Total winnings pick-4: $5,000 * 8 = $40,000. ROI (return on investment): 1724%. This must be the most efficient lottery strategy in history!\r\n<li> The best way to apply this super lottery strategy: Instead of playing the strategy one at a time (layer by layer), play the strategies for all 6 layers at the same time.\r\n</UL>\r\n

Copy the new text to replace with, which is now one paragraph (a single long line); paste it into the ‘Replace with’ textbox.

It works for me in 64-bit Windows 10, version 1703. You might want to test first by copying a couple of files to C:\TEMP and apply the procedure to those files.

Cheers!

Parpaluck
“The foolish man, the silly woman, the infatuated child draw beverage from the swamp, when crystalline water is aplenty in the rock nearby.”

Claudia Frank

@Parpaluck

Mr. Saliu,

if I’m allowed to answer, normally the eol which is currently in use is grayed out.
So in your case I would expect that the file has already only LF chars at the end of each line.

In addition, I run my virtualbox and started windows 10 64bit, installed npp 7.3.3 (32).

Here you can see how I successfully replaced multiline text
of one of your websites. If this doesn’t work for you I would give it a try to run npp without additional
plugins (if installed at all) - maybe one of those makes troubles as well.

Cheers
Claudia

Parpaluck

@Claudia Frank

Why do you call me names? What does it mean, “Mr. Saliu”? Who you talkin to?

I clicked on your “Here” link, and I get this:

“https://webmshare.com/m888e
NppOnWindows10ReplaceDemo
Error; Unsupported video type or invalid file path”

What is that “virtualbox”? My Windows 10 v1703 has nothing like that on my system.

That Unix (LF) setting does not carry out the multiline replace in my HTML files. It only pastes the first line in the MULTILINE text bloc. I tried it dozens of times. I got no idea what kind of HTML files you got… maybe you ain’t got no HTML files at all.

Otherwise, you might just have pasted a single long text line in the ‘Replace with’ textbox. The long line is displayed in “multiple lines” via ‘Word-wrap on’ (in ‘View’ menu). That’s not what we talkin about here. We consider MULTILINE TEXT BLOC text that shows multiple lines even when word-wrap is set to OFF.

Listen, if we put ego aside, we are left with facts only. The hard-cold facts have proven far more often than not that Notepad++ does NOT support replace of TRUE multiline text blocs via direct copy-and-paste. I work with 32-bit Notepad v7.3.3 and I don’t think I’ll move beyond that version. It looks a lot like cult-following. (The author should fight against that.) Hundreds of people here, real-life webmasters, would want such a replace function be implemented in Notepad++.

Otherwise, I’ll follow the hint by the guy you name-called “Mr. Saliu”. ‘Text Replace’ by Ecobyte does a tremendously great job. Not to mention it has a special feature Notepad++ will never implement: ‘Replace between ranges’ (e.g. different footers on a website).

Cheers!

Parpaluck
“The foolish man, the silly woman, the infatuated child draw beverage from the swamp, when crystalline water is aplenty in the rock nearby.”

dail

@Parpaluck

I banned your first account for insulting and disrespecting members of this forum multiple times. I was going to overlook the fact you created a secondary account and now you are lying about it (there is clear information in your profile about who you are).

I would choose your words wisely if you make any more posts.

This forum is to have civil and constructive discussions about Notepad++.

Claudia Frank

@Parpaluck

Why do you call me names? What does it mean, “Mr. Saliu”? Who you talkin to?

mabye because of this.

I clicked on your “Here” link, and I get this:

“https://webmshare.com/m888e
NppOnWindows10ReplaceDemo
Error; Unsupported video type or invalid file path”

Strange, could it be that your browser isn’t capable of running webm files?

What is that “virtualbox”? My Windows 10 v1703 has nothing like that on my system.

It allows me to install windows 10 under a running linux operating system.

That Unix (LF) setting does not carry out the multiline replace in my HTML files.
It only pastes the first line in the MULTILINE text bloc. I tried it dozens of times. I got >no idea >what kind of HTML files you got… maybe you ain’t got no HTML files at all.

The one you said I should use (Statistical Page Pick-3 Lottery in Notepad++)

Otherwise, you might just have pasted a single long text line in the ‘Replace with’ >textbox. The long line is displayed in “multiple lines” via ‘Word-wrap on’
(in ‘View’ menu). That’s not what we talkin about here.
We consider MULTILINE TEXT BLOC text that shows multiple lines even when word-wrap is set to OFF.
Listen, if we put ego aside, we are left with facts only. The hard-cold facts have proven >far more often than not that Notepad++ does NOT support replace of TRUE multiline >text blocs via direct copy-and-paste. I work with 32-bit Notepad v7.3.3 and I don’t
think I’ll move beyond that version. It looks a lot like cult-following. (The author should >fight against that.) Hundreds of people here, real-life webmasters, would want such a >replace function be implemented in Notepad++.

Agreed and I assume no one wants this workaround to be in place forever but for
the time being it might be helpful for other, if it doesn’t work for you …

Otherwise, I’ll follow the hint by the guy you name-called “Mr. Saliu”. ‘Text Replace’ by >Ecobyte does a tremendously great job. Not to mention it has a special feature >Notepad++ will never implement: ‘Replace between ranges’ (e.g. different footers on a >website).

Whatever makes you happy.

Cheers
Claudia

Parpaluck

“Agreed and I assume no one wants this workaround to be in place forever but for the time being it might be helpful for other, if it doesn’t work for you …”

It does NOT work for any SANE user, stupidiot!

@dail

Go fuck yourself, skum of two screaming bitches and three krazed dawgs: One without an eye, one without an ear, one without a tail!

You think banning factual accounts solve your madness?

ME THINKS NOT, father muckers!

Censorship, Ideology, Religion, Money, Piracy, Hatred, Ban

go2to

Claudia Frank guy038
I concur with Parpaluck. I can’t replicate your procedure. I copied the source of two of the webpages discussed in this thread. EOL is set to Unix. The replace box accepts only the first line in the multiple lines of text. What’s the whole point here? If you knowingly post the wrong procedure, it is disrespectful of other members of this community.

guy038

Hello, @go2to,

Oh no, for sure ! We’re not telling lies, Claudia and I ! So, we have to find out why you cannot perform a multi-lines replacement.

Obviously, the main point is the ability to insert a multi-lines text in the Replace with box, of the N++ Replace dialog. This case should be quite easy to verify !

Just follow this procedure :

Open the N++ v7.4.1 software ( Last version )
Open a new empty tab ( Ctrl + N )
Insert, for instance, the three complete lines, below :

abc
def
ghi

Click on the ¶ icon of the Tollbar OR choose the menu option View > Show Symbol > Show All Characters

=> The symbols of the Windows End of Line characters should be visible ( CR and LF ) at the end of each line

Then, choose the menu option Edit > EOL Conversion > Unix (LF)

=> This time, the three lines should end with the LF character, only

Select the block of these three lines ( => The cursor/caret should be located at beginning of line 4 )
Copy them in the clipboard ( Ctrl + C )
Now, open the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )
Paste the clipboard contents in the Replace with: box ( Ctrl + V )

=> You should notice that the inserted text is the string abcdefghi, which contains two invisible LF characters ( between letters c and d and between letters f and g ) !

Notes :

If you still see the string abc, only, it looks quite weird !? We’ll have to do further investigating :-(
This behaviour does not depend on the present encoding of the current file ( I did tests with ANSI, UTF-8 BOM and UCS-2 LE BOM encodings )
It does not depend, too, on the N++ present version ( I did tests with the old N++ v5.9.8 Ansi and N++ v6.4.5 ! => No problem )
It does not depend, also, on the present language ( I did tests with HTML, .INI, Python, Normal text, … => No problem )
Finally, it doesn’t care about the Wrap state of text ( menu option View > Word wrap )

See you later !

Best Regards,

guy038

go2to

guy038
The webpages we discussed here have EOL conversion to Unix disabled. I can’t do that in the Edit menu. I think the pages are hosted in an Apache server. All my pages show the same Edit menu in Npp.

Don Ho
Do you care to comment? You are the one everybody trusts 100%. What’s the truth about this replace function? Thanks.

guy038

Hi, @go2to,

Did you try the exact steps of the procedure, exposed in my last post ? It should work nice !

An IMPORTANT precision :

If the option Unix (LF), in Edit > EOL Conversion, is greyed out, after opening some HTML code :

Select the option Edit > EOL Conversion > Windows (CR LF), FIRST
Now, you should, correctly, select the option Edit > EOL Conversion > Unix (LF) !!

On the other hand, I, also, did a try with the source of a Web page, from the @ion-saliu site

=> No problem ! I was able to change this HTML text, with Unix ends of line and, therefore, able to perform, for instance, the multi-lines search/replacement, below !

Multi-lines text, below, placed in the Find what: box :

     13    7 12 36 48 54  37        in draw #                               13 
     14   16 35 37 52 54  33        in draw #                        14 
     16   13 22 27 52 55  26        in draw #                               16 
     17   10 25 35 38 41  23        in draw #                        17 
     18    3 37 46 48 51  22        in draw #           18 *
     19    9 23 47 53 55  39        in draw #                                     19 
     20   15 17 43 44 48  29        in draw #                                     20 
     21    3 13 35 39 40  37        in draw #     21 *
     22    7 38 40 51 52  14        in draw #     22 *
     23   14 25 32 48 54  10        in draw #                        23 
     24    4 12 13 30 38  30        in draw #                                     24 
     25   11 13 30 35 55  37        in draw #                 25 
     27   10 37 43 50 52  14        in draw #                 27 
     28    3 18 39 43 54  41        in draw #                 28 
     29   15 29 38 52 53   7        in draw #                 29 
     30    6 14 40 46 49  17        in draw #                                     30 
     33   10 23 42 48 54   3        in draw #                                     33 
     34    4 30 37 43 46  42        in draw #                        34 
     35   12 15 30 46 54   1        in draw #                        35 
     48   17 37 41 48 55  39        in draw #                                     48 
     50    7 25 29 37 50  17        in draw #                                     50 
     53    2 10 39 42 43  23        in draw #                                     53 
     54    6  7 36 51 53  17        in draw #                                     54 
     59    2 15 25 30 45  17        in draw #                                     59 
     62    2 10 31 43 55  14        in draw #                               62 
     68    1  3 30 31 43  36        in draw #                                     68

Changed into the multi-lines text, below, copied in the Replace with box :

 Line    Any  Any  Any  Any  Any  Any       Pos  Pos  Pos  Pos  Pos  Pos
 no.      1    2    3    4    5    PB        1    2    3    4    5    PB

    7     18   17   14   11   10   16        46   38   46   46   10   16 
    8     7    3    11   33   22   34        46   46   46   33   22   34 
    9     1    46   13   5    17   3         1    46   18   5    17   3 
   10     10   1    5    2    10   27        10   46   46   46   10   27 
   11     46   1    12   2    8    33        46   46   12   2    8    33

Cheers,

guy038

go2to

guy038
BTW your latest procedure works correctly with a new file in Windows Npp. The problem is with files that were edited several times in several editors and also downloaded from Linux servers to Windows PCs. Npp treats the files as Unix even if they were created in Windows?

I tried the first Saliu page presented here. I just saw another one with the results of the Preakness race (preakness-stakes-winners.html). It has the same Unix/Windows mixed EOLs. I tried a trick. I saved the file as HTML locally. I copied the entire file to a new file. All EOL codes became Windows. So, Convert EOL to Unix was enabled, while the convert to windows was disabled. The serious problem is doing this with hundreds of webpages (open, save html, copy and paste in new Notepad++ file, then change EOL to Unix). Impractical. The original pages can’t be converted to Unix LF.

I was skeptical about you and Claudia Frank. No hard feelings. I saw your convoluted procedure first, then you came back with an edit, and another edit. I saw also Claudia’s screenshot on changing fonts in a document. I tried it and never worked for me.

The intriguing aspect here is the difference in the two boxes. The find box works as-is, with no changes in EOL codes.

Don Ho?

Claudia Frank

@go2to

I saw also Claudia’s screenshot on changing fonts in a document. I tried it and never worked for me.

Can you explain in detail what you did and what you expected that should happen?

Cheers
Claudia

go2to

guy038
Your procedure works only in the open file, it can’t be applied to several files (especially on disk)! Replace in files is where the action is. I look with anticipation to see the replace box behave exactly like the find box without changes in EOL.

Don Ho?

For now, the Parpaluck procedure (\r\n) remains the only one applicable to multiple files directly on disk.

guy038

Hi, @@go2to,

I didn’t say that this procedure was “THE” solution. Of course, It’s just an interesting work-around, which may be helpful to some of us, from time to time !

And I agree, with you, that this multi-lines S/R is rather difficult to run on multiples files, because each of them must be “Unix” files, before performing the S/R, in the Replace in files dialog :-((

If you long for a true Multi-lines S/R feature, you could add a pull request, at the address, below :

https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/pulls

But, please, don’t expect a rapid reply to your request !!

Best Regards,

guy038