Notepad++ How to delete sections of text starting with a line containing a certain phrase

Banjo G

I’m trying to edit a few calibre files that have tags attached, but the tag line is not always formatted the same.

Eg.

div class=“pcalibre1 pcalibre2 pcalibre tags-list”

div class=“pcalibre1 pcalibre2 tags-list pcalibre”.

I want to delete everything including and between the lines containing tags-list and entry-speaker.

Is there an easy way to do this with regex?

Alan Kilborn

@Banjo-G said in Notepad++ How to delete sections of text starting with a line containing a certain phrase:

delete everything including and between the lines containing tags-list and entry-speaker

Your example doesn’t show any entry-speaker so I suggest you have a look HERE.

Banjo G

@Alan-Kilborn Sorry, those were examples of the lines not being formatted the same.
An better example would be

With all lines wanting to be deleted. The problem is that the tags-list and entry-speaker lines are often scrambled.

Eg.
<div class=“pcalibre2 pcalibre tags-list pcalibre1”>
<div class=“pcalibre1 pcalibre2 tags-list pcalibre”>
<div class=“pcalibre1 pcalibre2 pcalibre tags-list”>
<div class=“pcalibre2 pcalibre1 pcalibre tags-list”>

guy038

Hello, @banjo-g, @alan-kilborn and All,

I think you could test this regex S/R, below :

SEARCH (?-s)^.+?tags-list(?s).+?entry-speaker.+?$\R

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

against this sample text :

blabla
bhahblah
blabla
<div class=“pcalibre2 pcalibre1 pcalibre tags-list”>
…
…
…
…
<h4 class=“pcalibre2 entry-speaker pcalibre1 pcalibre”>
blabla
bhahblah
blabla
<div class=“pcalibre1 tags-list pcalibre2 pcalibre”>
…
…
…
…
<h4 class=“pcalibre2 pcalibre1 pcalibre entry-speaker”>
blabla
bhahblah
blabla
<div class=“pcalibre2 pcalibre tags-list pcalibre1”>
…
…
…
…
<h4 class=“entry-speaker pcalibre2 pcalibre1 pcalibre”>
blabla
bhahblah
blabla
rt
<div class=“tags-list pcalibre1 pcalibre2 pcalibre”>
…
…
…
…
<h4 class=“pcalibre2 pcalibre1 entry-speaker pcalibre”>
blabla
bhahblah
blabla

should be OK ;-))

Best Regards,

guy038

Banjo G

@guy038 That works wonders, thanks!

guy038

Hi, @banjo-g, @alan-kilborn and All,

A generic and general form of the regex, described in my previous post, could be :

SEARCH (?-is)^.*?Expression A(?s).*?Expression B.*?$\R

Basically, this regex :

Searches for two lines :
- A line A, containing Expression A, at any location of line A
- A line B, containing Expression B, at any location of line B
Selects all range of characters, generally multi-lines, from the beginning of line A till the end of line B, with its EOL characters
The lines A and B may be identical. However, in that case, Expression B must be located after Expression A, in current line !

Notes :

First, the in-line modifier (?-is)
- Carries a non-insensitive search ( so sensitive to case )
- Forces the regex engine to interpret the regex dot symbol . as matching a single standard character ( not EOL ones )
Then, the part ^.*?Expression A matches, from beginnning of line, the shortest range, possibly null, of standard characters, followed by Expression A, with that exact case
Now, the part (?s).*?Expression B looks for the shortest range, possibly null, of characters, including EOL, followed by Expression B, with that exact case
Finally, the part .*?$\R searches for the shortest range, possibly null, of characters till an end of line, followed with its line-break

Cheers,

guy038