Notepad ++ Regex finding a second appearance of a character and move it to the new line

luthando hanana

Good day Guys

I am not familiar with regex, Im using notepad++ trying to clean some data i received. Is there a way to find a second appearance of a character and place it on a new line.

E.g

I neeed to find the second appearance of the number ‘1’ and put it into a new line.

gerdb42

You may try the following:

Search for: (\d+)(\|.*?)\|\1(\|.*)
Replace with: \1\2\r\n\1\3

Breakdown: (\d+): find a sequence of digits at least one character long. Remember it for further use.
(\|.*?): find a Pipe character followed by an arbitrary sequence of characters but make it a short as possible. Remember for further use.
\|\1: find a Pipe character followed by the first captured sequence.
(\|.*): grab the remainder of the current line. Remember it for further use.

Now we have stored the entire line and can start rebuilding it:
\1: first captured sequence (first set of digits)
\2: second captured sequence
\r\n: new line
\1: first captured sequence again
\3: third captured sequence (remainder of line)

See http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_57_0/libs/regex/doc/html/boost_regex/syntax/perl_syntax.html and http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_57_0/libs/regex/doc/html/boost_regex/format/perl_format.html for more information about RegExes in NPP.

guy038

Hello, @luthando hanana, @gerb42 and All,

If we supposed that :

All your lines, normally, begin by an number-id, followed by a | character
Some of them are stuck to the previous one, with the syntax |number-id|

you could use the regex S/R, below :

SEARCH \|(?=\d+\|)

REPLACE \r\n ( or \n if you’re using an Unix file )

Notes :

The Vertical Line character, |, must be escaped to be seen as literal, because it’s a special regex character
The search regex looks for a single Vertical Line character, \|, ONLY IF it’s followed by some digits \d+ and a second Vertical Line character, \|
In replacement this Vertical Line character is, simply, replaced by a line break

Best Regards,

guy038