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    Searchin with wildcards

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    • Fernando ContiF
      Fernando Conti
      last edited by

      Hi.

      Well, I dont know if this could be possible , but I’d like to search and replace arguments with anothers using wildcards.

      For example, I’d like to find all the worlds between symbols [] and replace them with others or simply erase them.
      So if my text file have ocurrences like [one] , [two], [three], etc. I’d like to replace all these at the same time with [nothing] or simply search all the worlds that are between [] and erase them including the [] symbols.

      Any idea?

      Thanks in advance and apologize for my english.

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      • guy038G
        guy038
        last edited by guy038

        Hi, @fernando-conti,

        Very easy with regular expressions, indeed !

        • Open your file, in Notepad++

        • Move back at the very beginning ( CTRL + Origin )

        • Open the Find / Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )

        • Check the Regular expression search mode

        • Check, if necessary, the Match case option

        • In the Find what: zone, type the regex \[.+?\]

        • In the Replace with: zone, simply type the text that must replace all the [......] zones or leave it empty if you prefer to delete the [......] zones

        • Click on the Replace All button

        Et voilà,

        Notes :

        • As the symbols [ and ] have special meaning in regular expressions, they have to be escaped, both, to be considered as literal characters

        • The part .+? stands for the smallest range of characters, between the symbols [ and ]


        For instance, given the example text, below :

        This is a [123] test for searching [abc] all the [.......] zones !
        

        The regex :

        SEARCH \[.+?\]

        REPLACE Leave EMPTY

        modifies the text as below :

        This is a  test for searching  all the  zones !
        

        If the regex was \[.+\], it would have select the largest zone between the symbols [ and ], that it to say, the string “[123] test for searching [abc] all the [.......]”, in our example. Certainly not what you’re looking for !

        Best Regards,

        guy038

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