Bring up the **Find** window (ctrl+f).
Bring up the **Replace** window (ctrl+h).
Bring up the **Find in Files** window (ctrl+shift+f).
Bring up the **Mark** window (*Search* menu > *Mark...*).
**Find what** box: ``
**Replace with** box: ``
**Replace with** box: ***make sure this box is empty!***
**Search mode**: Normal Extended Regular expression
**Backward direction**: unticked
**Match whole word only**: unticked
**Match case**: unticked
**Wrap around**: unticked
**. matches newline**: unticked
**In selection**: unticked
**Bookmark line**: unticked
**Purge for each search**: unticked
Press the **Find Next** button.
Press the **Count** button.
Press the **Find All in All Opened Documents** button.
Press the **Find All in Current Document** button.
Press the **Replace** button.
Press the **Replace All** button.
Press the **Replace All in All Opened Documents** button.
Press the **Find All** button.
Press the **Replace in Files** button.
Press the **Mark All** button.
Press the **Clear all marks** button.```

if you are going to provide a Find expression to someone, perhaps someone very noob, also indicate the Search mode right alongside the Find (and/or Replace) expressions

Perhaps a template helps to not forget important details. The following can be copied and pasted into this forum and then filled-in / deleted-from:

Bring up the **Find** window (ctrl+f).
Bring up the **Replace** window (ctrl+h).
Bring up the **Find in Files** window (ctrl+shift+f).
Bring up the **Mark** window (*Search* menu > *Mark...*).
**Find what** box: ``
**Replace with** box: ``
**Replace with** box: ***make sure this box is empty!***
**Search mode**: Normal Extended Regular expression
**Backward direction**: unticked
**Match whole word only**: unticked
**Match case**: unticked
**Wrap around**: unticked
**. matches newline**: unticked
**In selection**: unticked
**Bookmark line**: unticked
**Purge for each search**: unticked
Press the **Find Next** button.
Press the **Count** button.
Press the **Find All in All Opened Documents** button.
Press the **Find All in Current Document** button.
Press the **Replace** **Replace All** **Replace All in All Opened Documents** button.
Press the **Replace All** button.
Press the **Replace All in All Opened Documents** button.
Press the **Find All** button.
Press the **Replace in Files** button.
Press the **Mark All** button.
Press the **Clear all marks** button.

So the idea is to use the template when composing here (or better, in a scratch N++ tab) is: fill in the blanks, delete out entire lines if they don’t apply or don’t matter, and remove un from unticked if you need to specify ticked for an option.

Here’s an example of template usage that (might) be accurate for this thread:

Bring up the **Replace** window (ctrl+h).
**Find what** box: `[whohit .*?/whohit]`
**Replace with** box: ***make sure this box is empty!***
**Search mode**: Regular expression
**Wrap around**: ticked
**. matches newline**: unticked
Press the **Replace All** button.

which produces when posted:

Bring up the Replace window (ctrl+h).
Find what box: [whohit .*?/whohit]
Replace with box: make sure this box is empty!
Search mode: Regular expression
Wrap around: ticked
. matches newline: unticked
Press the Replace All button.

[Of course, apologies to non-English users of Notepad++…]

This is a big FWIW !!

My experience/testing in this area indicates that Notepad++ will say Find: Invalid regular expression and won’t “fall back” to anything else. This is for [.

You’re right. I should have tried before I commented.

@andrecool-68 has a bad habit of helping out with searches of this sort without explicitly telling posters to set the Search mode to Regular expression. Okay, okay…in this case “regex” is in the posting title, but still, if you are going to provide a Find expression to someone, perhaps someone very noob, also indicate the Search mode right alongside the Find (and/or Replace) expressions.

@PeterJones said:

When you had only [whohit … there was not a pair of brackets, so Notepad++ fell back to treating them as literal characters.

My experience/testing in this area indicates that Notepad++ will say Find: Invalid regular expression and won’t “fall back” to anything else. This is for [.

For ] yes, it will be treated literally if there is no opening bracket coming before (as Peter has already correctly said).

R van said:

When I search for only “[whohit” I get 747 hits

Are you sure you are in regular expression Search mode when you got this? Hmmmm… or probably you aren’t paying attention to detail and giving us exactly what you searched for.

I found my solution by using backslash

Good job.

Only the variable text length (incl, space is) not working
PLS Advice

The reason is because in regular expression mode, the square bracket pair [] defines a character set – so Notepad++ matches any single character found between the square brackets. When you had only [whohit or only /whohit], there was not a pair of brackets, so Notepad++ fell back to treating them as literal characters. By adding the backslash before the first [, you told Notepad++'s regex engine to treat it as a literal [, rather than the start of a pair; and since there was no start to the pair, Notepad++ treated the closing ] as a literal as well.

This FAQ and the documentation it points to (especially the Boost regular expression docs) will help you more fully understand regular expressions in general and the Boost regular expression syntax (which is the flavor of regex used in Notepad++) in particular.

PLS Advice

Thx Robert

[whohit .*?/whohit]
Thx for your replay
It is working result is, 1.582.600 hits to many, many letters ar hit to…

Thx Robert