Trim xml attribute

MrKhad123

I have a large group of xml files that were generated to a specification where one attribute

dealerCustName=“This is the attribute there are many of them”

I need to be able to Trim the value of all of these attributes to 25 characters.

dealerCustName = “123456789012345678901234567890123456789”

needs to be this

dealerCustName = “1234567890123456789012345”

The attribute needs to be truncated to 25 chars regardless of the content.

Scott Sumner

@MrKhad123

One way would be thus:

Find what zone: (?-i)(dealerCustName\s*=\s*")([^"]{25})[^"]+"
Replace with zone: \1\2"
Search mode: Regular expression

If you can’t figure that out, just say so and it will be explained. :-D

guy038

Hello, @mrkhad123,

An other formulation could be :

SEARCH (?-i)^dealerCustName\h*=\h*"\d{25}\K\d*

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

OPTION Wrap around and Regular expression

ACTION Click on the Replace All button, exclusively

… and same remark as Scott’s one !

Best Regards,

guy038

Scott Sumner

@guy038

I had \K in my regular expression at first as I played wit it. Then I remembered that Notepad++ has trouble sometimes with it when using the “walking replace” (definition: using Replace to walk through and selectively replace text). I think most people (especially regex newbies) prefer to walk through some replacements first to build confidence that a search expression is correct before hitting Replace All. Thus I tend to not propose \K solutions here (I tend to capture everything leading up to where the \K would be into a group, and then use that group at replacement time to re-insert the text).

Of course, maybe this is a case where \K will work with the walking-replace; not sure, didn’t try. ;-)

MrKhad123

@Scott-Sumner Beautiful! That is exactly what I was looking for! Is there a place where I can find syntax for these types of replacements?

Scott Sumner

@MrKhad123

Some good references relating specifically to Notepad++ are:

general: http://docs.notepad-plus-plus.org/index.php/Regular_Expressions
find-specific: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_48_0/libs/regex/doc/html/boost_regex/syntax/perl_syntax.html
replace-specific: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_48_0/libs/regex/doc/html/boost_regex/format/boost_format_syntax.html

Also, some other general references I like are:

MrKhad123

@Scott-Sumner

Thanks again Scott.
You have been of great help.