Changing quotes ONLY within HTML elements

[Dario de Judicibus]

I wish to change any string like “text” to “text” but changes should not apply to quotes if they are inside HTML tags.
For example:

<p class=“test”>Change “this”.</p>

should become

<p class=“test”>Change &ldquo;this&rdquo;.</p>

not

<p class=&ldquo;test&rdquo;>Change &ldquo;this&rdquo;.</p>

How can I do that?

[guy038]

Hello, @dario-de-judicibus, and All,

No problem with regular expressions ;-))

So :

• Open the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )

• Select the Regular expression search mode

• Tick, if necessary, the Wrap around option

SEARCH (?=[^<>]+?<)(?:(\x{201c})|\x{201d})

REPLACE &(?1l:r)dquo;

• Click once, on the Replace All button or several times, on the Replace button

---

Notes :

• The main part (?:(\x{201c})|\x{201d}), is a non-capturing group with an alternative, |, which looks for, either :

  • The LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK, of Unicode value 201c, stored as group 1, due to the embedded parentheses

  • The RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK, of Unicode value 201d

• But ONLY IF the condition of the positive look-ahead structure is TRUE. That is to say if the regex [^<>]+?< can be matched at the current position of the regex engine

• This condition represents the shortest range of characters different from the two chars < and >, ending with the < character. Note that the ending < character may, either, introduce an other tag or close the present open tag, with the syntax </

• In replacement, the left or right double quotation mark is, then, changed into :

  • An ampersand character &. Then,

  • If the \x{201c} character has been found, in the correct area, the group 1 is defined => a l letter follows

  • If the \x{201d} character has been found, in the correct area, the group 1 is not defined => a r letter follows

  • Finally, the string dquo; is added

---

Remark : This regex can, also, manage correct areas, which are split on several lines, like as below :

<p class=“test”>
Change
 all “this”
 text to 
 “that”
 text.</p>

---

Best regards,

guy038

P.S. :

Now, if you prefer to search for all the Change “this”. areas, in some HTML code, use the following search regex :

SEARCH (?![\h\r\n]+)[^<>]+?(?=<)

Notes :

• The regex [^<>]+?(?=<) tries to match the shortest non-null range of characters, different from the two chars < and >, ONLY IF it’s followed with the < character

• And ONLY IF the negative look-ahead is TRUE at the current regex-engine position. In other words IF the area matched is NOT filled in with, only, horizontal blank and line-break characters !