Regex to delete sections of XML

Christopher Phillips

How can I use regex to find/delete all XML strings/units that contain (approved=“yes”)
I have tried this and is find the sections that have Yes but becomes greedy when it doesn’t
<trans.?(approved=“yes”).?unit>?\n

Find
<trans-unit id=“1” identifier=“e4c7” approved=“yes”>
<source>Hello world
</trans-unit>

Ignore
<trans-unit id=“5” identifier=“e4c7” approved=“no”>
<source>Welcome to the world
</trans-unit>

Terry R

@Christopher-Phillips
This should help.

Find what:^(<trans.+?approved=)(?=“yes”)(?s).+?trans-unit>\R
Replace With:nothing in this field <— field empty

This will find those occurrences with the parameter “yes” and with the replace field set to ‘blank’ it will remove those occurrences. Note the last character is a carriage return/line feed, just so you don’t finish up with extra blank lines afterwards. Also note I started the regex with a ^, meaning start of line, I assume these XML strings will ALL start at the beginning of a line.

Also note the " characters need to be exactly as you have it. If it doesn’t work initially, change these in my regex to be the same as your XML strings.

Terry

guy038

Hello, @christopher-phillips, and All,

To delete all the <trans-unit......>.........</trans-unit> areas, just execute this regex S/R :

SEARCH (?s)<(trans-unit)\x20((?!<\1).)+?approved="yes".+?</\1>\R

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

Check preferably the Wrap around option
Select the Regular expression search mode
Click, once, on the Replace All button

Et voilà !

Test it against the text below :

<trans-unit id="1" identifier="e4c7" approved="yes"> <source>Hello world </trans-unit>

<trans-unit id="5" identifier="e4c7" approved="no"> <source>Welcome to the world </trans-unit>

<trans-unit id="1" identifier="e4c7" approved="yes">
<source>Hello world
</trans-unit>

<trans-unit id="5" identifier="e4c7" approved="no">
<source>Welcome to the world
</trans-unit>

<trans-unit id="1"
 identifier="e4c7"
 approved="yes">
<source>Hello world
</trans-unit>

<trans-unit id="5"
 identifier="e4c7" approved="no">
<source>Welcome to the world
</trans-unit>

Notes :

This search regex uses the usual Quotation Mark symbol " ( \x{0022} ) and not the Left and Right Double Quotation Mark “ and ” ( \x{201C} and \x{201D} ). Change the double quotes, if necessary !
The first part (?s) means that dot will match any single char ( standard or EOL chars )
Then, the regex looks for the < symbol, followed with the string trans-unit, stored as group 1, because of the parentheses, followed with a space char ( <(<trans-unit)\x20 )
After the part ((?!<\1).)+?approved="yes" tries to find the smallest range, even multi-lines, of any character till the string approved="yes" ONLY IF the string <trans-unit cannot be found at any position of that range
Finally, the part .+?</\1>\R tries to match the smallest range, even multi-lines, of any character till the string </trans-unit>, followed with the usual EOL characters of current line

Best Regards,

guy038

Christopher Phillips

@guy038 said:

Thank you both.
guy038, yours was the one that sorted it for me. Thanks

Christopher Phillips

@guy038 If I have many <trans-unit> <trans-unit> without approved=“yes” it is like Notepad++ can’t handle it and selects the whole file from start to finish as if I had pressed Ctrl+a
Seems there is an issues with grouping from what I could find
https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/683

I am not sure what grouping is but can you think of a workaround?

guy038

Hi, @christopher-phillips, @terry-r and All,

Indeed, in some cases, the N++ regex engine wrongly matches all the file contents ! I have not been able to find out, so far, which condition(s) cause(s) this issue :-((

But if all your ranges of characters <trans-unit...........approved="yes/no" lie in a single line only, the more simple regex, below, without the negative look-ahead structure, should work better :

(?-s)^\h*<(trans-unit)\x20.+approved="yes"((?s).+?)</\1>\R

Cheers,

guy038

Christopher Phillips

Mine are note on the same line. In some cases there are line breaks within the element as well :-(

  <trans-unit id="8" identifier="b2a7b029bf7d20000a606ec7a87bc248">
    <source>The old password is not right</source>
    <target state="needs-translation">The old password is not right</target>
    <note>Context: -&gt; The old password is not correct</note>
  </trans-unit>
  <trans-unit id="9" identifier="d0d863d18d76100000ad54f79a2eed11">
    <source>No account found</source>
    <target state="needs-translation">No account found</target>
    <note>No account</note>
  </trans-unit>
  <trans-unit id="11" identifier="bd421d33a9b0000e1e46049b1273eb9" approved="yes">
    <source>Cannot get questions</source>
    <target>ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗಳನ್ನು ಪಡೆಯಲು</target>
    <note>Context: #error</note>
  </trans-unit>

Christopher Phillips

@guy038 said:

Thanks @guy038 you are a star. I misread and thought everything needed to be on a single line. You new regex works perfectly.