@terry-r

I am very grateful for your help friends (guy038, terry), they are the maximum
thank you teachers

they work perfectly

Ah OK ! So, here are, below, all the regexes to achieve the suppression of 1 or 2 columns, from an original 3-columns table, separated with colons ( : )

Let’s imagine the initial 3-columns table, below :

cell A1:cell B1:cell C1
cell A2:cell B2:cell C2
cell A3:cell B3:cell C3

Then :

• With the regex S/R :

SEARCH :[^:\r\n]+$

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

Only columns A and B remain :

cell A1:cell B1
cell A2:cell B2
cell A3:cell B3

• With the regex S/R

SEARCH (?-s):.+(?=:)

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

Only columns A and C remain :

cell A1:cell C1
cell A2:cell C2
cell A3:cell C3

• With the regex S/R :

SEARCH (?-s)^.+?:(?=.+:)

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

Only columns B and C remain :

cell B1:cell C1
cell B2:cell C2
cell B3:cell C3

• With the regex S/R :

SEARCH (?-s):.+$

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

Only column A remains :

cell A1
cell A2
cell A3

• With the regex S/R :

SEARCH (?-s).+:(.+):.+

REPLACE \1

Only column B remains :

cell B1
cell B2
cell B3

• With the regex S/R :

SEARCH (?-s)^.+:

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

Only column C remains :

cell C1
cell C2
cell C3

Cheers,

guy038

First off, as @guy038 says, copy the entire file to another tab in Notepad++. So you should have 2 identical copies of the file (make sure the 2nd copy has a different file name as they need to be saved as different files).Add a blank line at the bottom of both files, so last line.

In the 1st tab use the following regex to alter the text
Find what: ^(.+?):.+?(:.+?\R)
Replace with: \1\2
search mode is “regular expression” and “wrap around” ticked.
Once this is run you can remove the last blank line and save this file.

In the 2nd tab (so this is the copy of the original file) use the regex:
Find what: ^.+?:(.+?:.+?\R)
Replace with : empty field here <— this means nothing in this field!
search mode is “regular expression” and “wrap around” ticked.
Once this is run you can remove the last blank line and save this file. Make sure this is a different file name, otherwise you will overwrite the results from the first regex.

I hope this helps. My solution does rest on my description being accurate. If it is not then you need to provide it similar to how I did.

Terry

PS as you have found out, your original example wasn’t good enough for us to help you properly. My description, had you included that at the start would have provided the extra information needed to supply you with a good solution.

In order for us to help further we would need to know what you have tried, what didn’t work and also some more examples if a particular regex did NOT work as expected.

@guy038 had a good idea. By copying the data, so you have 2 copies, you can create the individual groups you want independently. That also means once you have altered the text, it will still be in the same order as it started with. My idea would possibly have changed the order and that may not be what you wanted.

Terry

freddy: letters@sout.com: darkkk12
how would the method to separate them, with the previous method does not work

I didn’t fully read all the posts, yet, but, personally, I would use the following method :

• Do 2 copies of your 200000-lines text

• Open the first copy in N++

• Open the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )

SEARCH :\d+

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

• Select the Regular expression search mode

• Tick the Wrap around option

• Click on the Replace All button

You should get the expected text :

literature:trouble
history:medicine
algebra:nature

• Open the second copy, in N++

SEARCH (?-s)^.+?:(?=\d+)

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

This time, you should get the following text :

18:trouble
10:medicine
09:nature

Note that I use a look-ahead structure, (?=\d+), just in case your text contains other lines ( as, for instance, Section 1: or Example 2: ) with a : symbol, not followed with digits !

Best Regards

guy038

Where it says d{2}, change the 2 to 3. If numbers exceed 3 digits then change 2 to 2,4. You may even need to increase further the 4 to say 8, depending on the range of numbers you have.
Terry

Note: replace with: \ 1 \ 2 \ 4 \ 5 \ 3 \ 2 \ 4 \ 5, is it only for 5 lines?

Terry

Try the following on your original file.
Find what: ^(?i)([a-z]+?)(:)(\d{2}):([a-z]+?)(\R)
replace with: \1\2\4\5\3\2\4\5

Once this is done you use the sort function to group the 2 different line types apart. So Edit, Line Operations, Sort lines lexicographically descending.

See what that produces for you. If you are happy then just copy the 2nd group elsewhere (another file).

If the result is NOT what you wanted let us know and maybe someone can give you a different regex to achieve it.

Terry

literature:18:trouble
history:10:medicine
algebra:09:nature

to

18:trouble
10:medicine
09:nature

If however the sort changed the order to, say
algebra
history
literature

does that concern you?

Terry

Terry

So in effect you would have:
algebra:nature
history:medicine
literature:trouble

followed by the 2nd group which have the numbers at the start.

My idea is as follows:
the regex to transform 1 line into 2 lines is:
Find what: ^(?i)([a-z]+?)(:)(\d{2}):([a-z]+?)(\R)
replace with: \1\2\4\591919 \3\2\4\5

So this would create (using your example):
literature:trouble
91919 18:trouble
history:medicine
91919 10:medicine
algebra:nature
91919 09:nature

So now you would use the sort lines option, Edit, Line Operations, Sort lines lexicographically descending.

This produces:
literature:trouble
history:medicine
algebra:nature
91919 18:trouble
91919 10:medicine
91919 09:nature

Then another regex to remove the numbers.
Find what: ^91919\h
Replace with: empty field here

So you’d finish up with:
literature:trouble
history:medicine
algebra:nature
18:trouble
10:medicine
09:nature

As you can see it hasn’t affected the order of the numbered group, but it has changed the order of the first grouping.

Terry

18:trouble
10:medicine
09:nature

friend excuse me but I do not understand, there are some codes to separate them (regular expression):
Find-what box:
Replace-with box:
Search mode: ☑ Regular expression
I separate copy and paste in another file
First file
literature: trouble
history: medicine
algebra: nature
Second file
18: trouble
10: medicine
09: nature

I’m thinking that the regex would add a number to the start of every second line (like 999999) and once all lines were divided, you’d sort the lines. That would put each of the groups in separate areas of the file.

Terry

Both are possible with a regular expression (regex), one however is going to require more steps. I can see it maybe requiring 3 regex’s to achieve if the answer to my question is true

Thanks for answering, friend I need to separate them, then I’ll copy them in two different files. they are not necessarily the same code

Otherwise I wonder if you mean
literature:trouble
18:trouble
history:medicine
10:medicine

Both are possible with a regular expression (regex), one however is going to require more steps. I can see it maybe requiring 3 regex’s to achieve if the answer to my question is true.

Terry