regexp with hashes help

Scott Sumner

I’m certainly willing to assist, but I have no clue what “send me the first request to check and I’ll tell you what results I want omitted” means. (Which to me is the long form of my earlier response of “???”.)

patrickdrd

thanks a lot,

I was talking about the original, first message,
ignore the follow-up for now,
we’ll talk about them after the initial results

guy038

Hello, @patrickdrd, @scott-sumner and All

Scott, I suppose that @patrickdrd was expecting your first regex attempt, in order to test it on real data ! However, I must admit that the @patrickdrd’s formulation looks like more as an imperative order than a polite request for some regex help :-(

Anyway, @patrickdrd, I’ll try to give you some hints !

Here is, below, the general form of the regex S/R which deletes all lines containing, exactly, n times the Char character ;-))

SEARCH ^(?:([^Char\r\n]*)Char){n}(?1)\R

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

In your case, as you, probably, want to delete all lines containing, exactly, 1 hash char, only, whatever its location, the correct regex becomes :

^(?:([^#\r\n]*)#){1}(?1)\R

which can be shortened as :

^([^#\r\n]*)#(?1)\R

Notes :

The [^#\r\n]* part represents the longest range, even null, of characters different from # and line-breaks, stored as group 1 and re-used, after the # symbol, in the (?1) sub-routine call syntax, which is equivalent to [^#\r\n]*
As usual, the \R form matches any line-break, whatever the file type ( Windows, Unix or Mac )

Cheers,

guy038

patrickdrd

sorry guys, I didn’t mean to be impolite, I just didn’t express myself properly

patrickdrd

ok, I’ve just tested guy038’s suggestion and it’s not “safe” because
it matches these lines I would like excluded:

@@.jpg#$image,domain=comando-filmes.org
@@.png#$image,domain=fbfriendrequest.com|igflash.com|likesgroup.com
||mexashare.com^*.png#$image,domain=mexashare.com,redirect=2x2-transparent.png
*.png#$image,redirect=2x2-transparent.png,domain=idsly.com
*.png#$image,redirect=2x2-transparent.png,domain=premiumtoss.com
*.jpg#$image,redirect=2x2-transparent.png,domain=300mbfilms.org
*.png#$image,redirect=2x2-transparent.png,domain=golrojadirecta.com
*.gif#$image,redirect=1x1-transparent.gif,domain=totaldebrid.org
.png#$image,domain=boveda7k.es,redirect=2x2-transparent.png
@@.png#$image,domain=driverdestek.com
*.jpg#$image,domain=radiocockpit.fr,redirect=3x2-transparent.png
*.gif#$image,domain=vertdtgratis.es,redirect=1x1-transparent.gif

so maybe my best shot is #\s

Scott Sumner

@guy038 said:

the (?1) sub-routine call syntax

Gotta love the sub-routine syntax…why write something like [abc]{5} when you can write (?+1)(?'name'[abc])(?1)(?-1)(?&name) ? :-D

Example shamelessly stolen from here after I read up on it…and OK, that example includes named groups as well…but all good stuff (that works in N++).

Scott Sumner

@patrickdrd

Hey, you’ve been around long enough to know to indent every line of example text with 4 spaces before posting. :-)

(Noticed that you escaped some * but apparently not all because some of your text is in italics…way easier to just indent 4 and forgetaboutit)

guy038

Hi, @patrickdrd, @scott-sumner and All

Scott, your regex use of the (?1) syntax made me laugh a lot ;-)) Of course, it would be ridiculous to use such a regex !

So, the generic regex S/R, of my previous post, which deletes all lines containing, exactly, n times the Char character can, also, be written :

SEARCH ^(?:[^Char\r\n]*Char){n}[^Char\r\n]*\R?

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

Now, generally speaking, when you want to delete some lines of a file, based on a criteria, just determine :

The common characteristics of all the lines which have to be to kept

OR the opposite :

The common characteristics of all the lines which have to be deleted

patrickdrd, reading more carefully, and from your last example, it’s seemed that you would like to delete, either :

All lines, containing the #$ string
All lines, containing more than one hash character #

In that case, use the regex S/R, below :

SEARCH ^.*#(.*#|\$).*\R?

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

Cheers,

guy038

patrickdrd

no, sexually l actually I want to keep those lines and the ones posted above, it’s an awkward one, I know

patrickdrd

damn auto correct…