Changing Data inside XML element

Matthew Allshorn

Have this as an example:

and only replace the “/” for the <ProductName>.

How can I do a find and replace on the “/” to a “-” so that it will not course me issues in another process, please?

astrosofista

Hi @Matthew-Allshorn

Notice that in example data an ending angle bracket > is missing, I will take this as a typo. So assuming that, the following regex will do the job:

Search: (?-s)\Q<ProductName><![CDATA[\E.+?\K/(?=.+?]]></ProductName>)
Replace: -

Put the caret at the very beginning of the document, select just the Regular Expressions mode and click on Replace All.

Take care and have fun!

Matthew Allshorn

@astrosofista said in Changing Data inside XML element:

(?-s)\Q<ProductName><![CDATA[\E.+?\K/(?=.+?]]></ProductName>)

Thank you so much, been bugging me for days…

guy038

Hello, @matthew-allshorn and All,

First, because of a wrong Markdown syntax, some part of your post was not displayed ! So, allow me to show the real contents of your post !

Matthew said :

Have this as an example:

<ProductName><![CDATA[Product Name Could be anything here L/XL]]></ProductName>
<ProductName><![CDATA[Product Name Could be anything here S/XXL]]></ProductName>

Have 7000 products, around 500 of them have “/” in the product names, which is coursing an issue in another process. So want to ignore anything before and after the “/” inside square brackets and only replace the “/” for the <ProductName>.

How can I do a find and replace on the “/” to a “-” so that it will not course me issues in another process, please?

Now, I’ve got a regex solution :

SEARCH (<!\\[CDATA\\[|\G)[^]\r\n]*?\K/

REPLACE \x2d

Notes :

This regex may change several slash / characters, present in a single <![CDATA[ .............. ]]> area
This regex keeps the slash char(s) when found outside a <![CDATA[ .............. ]]> area

Test it against that text :

<ProductName><![CDATA[Product/Name Could be/anything/here S/XXL]]></ProductName><p>Test/Test / Test</p>

Best Regards,

guy038

Alan Kilborn

I think the regexes shown above are victims of this site not being able to slow backslash followed by [ correctly!

Also, is there a reason the technique shown HERE is not employed to solve this one?

guy038

Hello, @matthew-allshorn, @alan-kilborn and All,

@Alan-kilborn :

BUt I did use this method ! I just forgot the (?!\A) look-head in front of \G !

Remember my notations :

BR = <!\\[CDATA\\[
ER = [^]\r\n]*? which, implicitly, define the area where to search for a slash / character. indeed, the regex searches for the shortest range of characters, different from a closing square bracket ] and EOL chars, till a / character. So the area, where to search for a /, begins right after the literal <![CDATA[ string and ends right before the ]]> string
SR = /
RR = \x2d

@matthew-allshorn

So, the safe method is :

Move the caret to the very beginning of current file ( Ctrl + Home )
Open the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )
- SEARCH (?-i)(<!\\[CDATA\\[|(?!\A)\G)[^]\r\n]*?\K/
- REPLACE \x2d
- Select the Regular expression search mode
- Click once on the Replace All mode

@Alan-kilborn :

May be, the notation ER, for Excluded Regex, has not the appropriate name. Globally, this regex, built with a negative class char [^...] or with a negative look-ahead syntax ((?!•••••••).)*?, defines , at the same time :

A zone, beginning with BR, where the search of SR is possible
And, implicitly, any other areas, where the search of SR is strictly forbidden

As soon as a char of the area is not valid, the regex must skip one or more characters to, possibly, match an other SR string, But this possibility is not allowed because of the \G assertion, which forces consecutive matches. So, this overall syntax guaranties that a new match attempt of SR should occur after a next BR string !

Best Regards,

guy038

Alan Kilborn

@guy038 said in Changing Data inside XML element:

But I did use this method

I guess what I meant is, why not point back to the generic solution, during solving it specifically?
That way people that want to learn have an opportunity, and perhaps could apply the general techniques themselves to their future problems. Maybe I’m too hopeful. :-)

But for me, I’m always reading postings here trying to pick off new techniques. If I had seen that this one was solved using a technique I already knew about, I’d save myself some time and stop reading. :-)

May be, the notation ER, for Excluded Regex, has not the appropriate name…

I like thinking of it as “end Exclusion Region” :-)

Also, did you see my earlier statement?:

I think the regexes shown above are victims of this site not being able to slow backslash followed by [ correctly!

Because without proper escaping of the [, this isn’t going to be a valid regex:

Alan Kilborn

@Alan-Kilborn said in Changing Data inside XML element:

Because without proper escaping of the [, this isn’t going to be a valid regex

Due to site problems with posting backslash-then-[, maybe best to do \Q[\E instead!

guy038

Hello, @matthew-allshorn, @alan-kilborn and All,

Oh, my God ! Thanks, Alan, I’ve just updated my two previous posts, in order to get the right \\[ syntax !

Now, Alan, your idea of ER for Excluded Region, with the same letters, is really clever :-)) And I think the BR notation could also refer to the Beginning Region. Do your agree to this idea ?

We could also choose the SR notation for Start Region, but in this case, we need to change the old SR by SD ( Search Definition ) and the old RR by RD ( Replacement Definition !

Cheers,

guy038

Alan Kilborn

@guy038 said in Changing Data inside XML element:

Now, Alan, your idea of ER for Excluded Region, with the same letters, is really clever :-)) And I think the BR notation could also refer to the Beginning Region. Do your agree to this idea ?
We could also choose the SR notation for Start Region, but in this case, we need to change the old SR by SD ( Search Definition ) and the old RR by RD ( Replacement Definition !

I’m always agreeable to nice patterns and things that help make something easier to understand. :-)

guy038

Hi, @alan-kilborn,

So, Alan, do you think these notations acceptable and my formulation clear enough ?

Let SD (Search Definition ) be the regex which defines the char, string or expression to be searched
Let RD (Replacement Definition ) be the regex which defines the char, string or expression which must replace the SD expression
Let SR ( Start Region ) be the regex which defines the start of the area where the search for SD, must begin
Let ER ( Excluded Region) be the regex which defines, implicitly, the area where the search for SD, must stop

Then, the generic regex can be expressed :

SEARCH (?s)(?:SR|(?!\A)\G)(?:(?!ER).)*?\K(?:SD) OR (?-s)(?:BR|(?!\A)\G)(?:(?!ER).)*?\K(?:SD)

REPLACE RD

Important :

You must use, at least, the v7.9.1 N++ release, so that the \A assertion is correctly handled
You must, move the caret at the very beginning of current file ( Ctrl + Home ), in case of a Replace All operation

BR

guy038

P.S. :

Thereafter, if we agreed, I’ll try to get all of my posts, speaking of these *notations and will update them, accordingly !

Alan Kilborn

@guy038

I think I misspoke before with my “end Exclusion Region” phraseology.
I really meant (I think) to not use the word “exclusion”.
Sure, that’s what the functionality in the overall regex is, but from a user instruction perspective, it confuses. User is better to think in terms of start and end rather than start and exclusion.

How about:

BSR (Begin Search-region Regex)
ESR (End Search-region Regex)
FR (Find Regex)
RR (Replace Regex)

Of course, in the end, totally up to you.

astrosofista

@Alan-Kilborn said in Changing Data inside XML element:

I think the regexes shown above are victims of this site not being able to slow backslash followed by [ correctly!

Not in my post, I used the \Q \E escape sequence to avoid that.

Cheers

Alan Kilborn

@guy038

Also, can we encapsulate the (?s) and (?-s) difference somehow, so you don’t have to publish TWO regexes that differ only in that leading element?

Actually, shouldn’t it be up to the user to use (?s) or (?-s) as appropriate in their SR, ER, etc expressions?

You have one use of . in the generic expression, perhaps it should have its own (?s) or (?-s) specifier that only relates to it?

I suppose this gets even more complicated, but I’ll leave it to a “big regex thinker” like you. :-)

@astrosofista said :

Not in my post, I used the \Q \E escape sequence to avoid that.

Right, I was of course meaning the others.
But, it is probably bad to modify the regex you want to write, just so that it meets some criterion of the site it is posted on!

guy038

Hello, @matthew-allshorn, @alan-kilborn and All,

Back to my @matthew-allshorn’s search regex :

SEARCH (?-i)(<!\\[CDATA\\[|(?!\A)\G)[^]\r\n]*?\K/

I could have slightly modified it, as Regex_A, below which, in turn, could also be expressed, according to the generic syntax, as Regex_B

Regex_A :   (?x-i)  (?:  <!\\[CDATA\\[  |  (?!\A)\G)      [^]]      *?  \K  /

Regex_B :   (?x-i)  (?:  <!\\[CDATA\\[  |  (?!\A)\G)  (?: (?!]).)   *?  \K  /

Now, Alan, I fully endorse your new abbreviations ! So :

Let FR (Find Regex ) be the regex which defines the char, string or expression to be searched
Let RR (Replacement Regex ) be the regex which defines the char, string or expression which must replace the FR expression
Let BSR ( Begin Search-region Regex ) be the regex which defines the beginning of the area where the search for FR, must start
Let ESR ( End Search-region Regex) be the regex which defines, implicitly, the area where the search for FR, must end

Then, the generic regex can be expressed :

SEARCH (?-i:BSR|(?!\A)\G)(?s:(?!ESR).)*?\K(?-i:FR)

REPLACE RR

Important :

You must use, at least, the v7.9.1 N++ release, so that the \A assertion is correctly handled
You must, move the caret at the very beginning of current file ( Ctrl + Home ), if you plane a Replace All operation
If all instances of FR, to match, are located in the same line as BSR, use (?-s) ( instead of (?s) ), in the appropriate non-capturing group
If the BSR expression to match is independent from case, use (?i) ( instead of (?-i) ), in the appropriate non-capturing group
If the FR expression to match is independent from case, use (?i) ( instead of (?-i) ), in the appropriate non-capturing group.
Depending of the FR contents, when case is not concerned, you may, either :
- Omit its non-capturing group and, if necessary, use the $0 syntax, in the replacement regex RR
- Define a group for some part of FR, which will be re-used in the replacement regex RR

Alan, do you like it that way ?

Best Regards,

guy038

Alan Kilborn

@guy038 said in Changing Data inside XML element:

Alan, do you like it that way ?

I do have some suggestions; will post back after I have some more time to consider it.

Alan Kilborn

@guy038 said in Changing Data inside XML element:

(?-i:BSR|(?!\A)\G)(?s:(?!ESR).)*?\K(?-i:FR)

So I experimented a bit, and I found that it could be judged a bit “fragile”, from its higher-level intent. Example:

overall regex:

(?x)    (?-i:    (?s:B.*?S.*?R)    |(?!\A)\G)    (?s:(?!E.*?S.*?R).)    *?\K    (?s-i:F.*?R)

data set 1:

B
S
R

FR

F
R

E
S
R

FR

result 1 (intended):

data set 2:

B
S
R

FR

F


E
S
R

FR

result 2 (unintended):

I certainly understand the reason for failure of result 2.

guy038

@Alan-kilborn and All,

Alan, you’re cheating a bit ! Let’s me explain :

I’ll use this sample text :

B
S
R
FR

F
R

F

F


R


R

F

FR
E
S
R
FR

F
R

F

F


R


R

F

FR

FR

Your FR regex is (?s-i:F.*?R) which means : “Search for the shortest range, possibly empty, of any char, EOL included, between a F letter and a R letter, with that case”

So, using only the regex (?s-i:F.*?R), it matches, in the BSR •••••••• ESR area :

The string FR, line 9
The string FCRLFR, lines 11 and 12
The string FCRLFCRLFFCRLFCRLFCRLFR, between the lines 14 and 19
The string FCRLFCRLFFR, between the lines 24 and 26

Now, let’s consider this other FR regex (?s-i:F\R*R). This regex searches for a F, with that case, followed with a range of consecutive EOL chars, possibly empty, till a R letter, with that case. I think this definition is close to what we expect to :

Using this new version (?s-i:F\R*R), it matches, in the BSR •••••••• ESR area :

The string FR, line 9
The string FCRLFR, lines 11 and 12
The string FCRLFCRLFCRLFR, between the lines 16 and 19
The string FR, line 26

So, if we use this overall regex ( only the FR part have been changed ) :

(?x)    (?-i:    (?s:B.*?S.*?R)    |  (?!\A)\G)    (?s:(?!E.*?S.*?R).)    *?\K    (?s-i:F\R*R)

it correctly matches and marks :

The string FR, line 9, right after the BSR
The string FCRLFR, lines 11 and 12
The string FCRLFCRLFCRLFR, between the lines 16 and 19
The string FR, line 26, right before the ESR
And every other match of the simple regex (?s-i:F\R*R), located after the ESR, are discarded, as expected ;-))

Refer the picture, below, where I’m using the regex in line 3 :

In summary, this generic regex seems quite robust !!

Best Regards,

guy038

Alan Kilborn

So the part that bothers me (slightly) is that as a user, I want to think of specifying the search region and the find regexes as independent entities.
Maybe another way of saying it is that I’d like the search region to have precedence over the find.
In my example 2 this doesn’t happen, and maybe there is no way to have it happen.

With this, I run the risk of writing a bad replacement, that could be data dependent.
Meaning that I could craft something that works well for a few cases at the top of a file where I’m testing it, but perhaps not all cases farther down in the file (or worse, multiple files).
So I do my “few cases” analysis, deem it working, and then tell it to blast away at the rest of the file(s), and find out some time later that I’ve corrupted my data with errant replacements.

Normally, in such a risky situation – if I know/suspect it to be so – I could tell myself “Don’t use this technique in a Replace All situation, just do a Replace (with implied Find Next) so that you can verify each replacement.” But… this technique uses \K and individual-replace doesn’t work (certainly not your fault @guy038 – are the devs ever going to make it work?).

Perhaps there are just always going to be such risks with certain techniques.

guy038

Hi, @alan-kilborn and All,

I tried to study the \K behavior, in case of a simple replacement with the Replace button and, unfortunately, I cannot deduce a general rule for that assertion :-((

Open a new tab and paste the simple expression abgcd ef ghi j
Select one line of the list , below, containing a regex
Open the Replace dialog( Ctrl + H )
For all the examples, the Replace with field contains only the @ character
Click once on the Find Next button
Then, click several times on the Replace button … till no replacement occurs

=>

Results, after :

    - A "CTRL + HOME" operation

    - SELECTION of ONE regex or LINE, below

	- A "CTRL + H" operation

    - ONE click on the "FIND NEXT" button

    - SEVERAL clicks on the "REPLACE" button  ( NOT the "REPLACE ALL" button ! )

against the string  "abgcd ef ghi j", PASTED in a NEW tab :


(?x-s).+?\K\x20           # KO  ( 3 SPACE chars NOT changed )
(?x-s).*?\K\x20           # OK  ( 3 SPACE chars CHANGED into @ )

(?x-is)(ab.*?\Kg|.*?\Kp)  # KO  ( TWO "g" NOT changed )
(?x-is)(ab.*?\Kg|.*?\Kh)  # KO  ( TWO "g" NOT changed, "h" CHANGED into @ only  )
(?x-is)(ab.*?\Kg|.*?\Kg)  # OK  ( TWO "g" CHANGED into @ )

(?x-is)(.*?\Kg|.*?\Kp)    # OK  ( TWO "g" CHANGED  into @ )
(?x-is)(.*?\Kg|.*?\Kh)    # OK  ( TWO "g" and "h" CHANGED into @  )
(?x-is)(.*?\Kg|.*?\Kg)    # OK  ( Two "g" CHANGED into @ )

(?x-is)a.*?\Kg            # KO  ( TWO "g" NOT changed )
(?x-is)\l.*?\Kg           # KO  ( TWO "g" NOT changed )

(?x-is).*?\Kg             # OK  ( TWO "g" CHANGED into @ )
(?x-is)(ab|)*?\Kg         # OK  ( TWO "g" CHANGED into @ )
(?x-is)(ab|\G)*?\Kg       # OK  ( TWO "g" CHANGED into @ )

Although the \K behavior is rather difficult to interpret, it seems, however, from the last example (?x-is)(ab|\G)*?\Kg, that the generic regex is compatible with several “step by step” replacements, using the Replace button only. So :

Paste the text, below, in a new tab :

F

R

FR
B
S
R
FR

F
R

F

F


R


R

F

FR
E
S
R
FR

F
R

F

F


R


R

F

FR

FR

Move back to the very beginning ( Ctrl + Home )
Open the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )

SEARCH    (?x)  (?: (?s-i:B.*?S.*?R)  |  (?!\A)\G )  (?s-i:(?!E.*?S.*?R).)*?  \K  (?s-i:F\R*R)   #  With my FR version

REPLACE   @

Click once on the Find Next button ( it should select the first FR, after “BSR” )
Then, click four times on the Replace button

=> One at a time, the selected matched zone is replaced with the @ sign ;-))

and you should get that picture :

Now, Alan, it quite possible to avoid the \K assertion, with that syntax :

SEARCH    (?x)  (  (?: (?s-i:B.*?S.*?R)  |  (?!\A)\G )  (?s-i:(?!E.*?S.*?R).)*?  )  (?s-i:F\R*R)  #  With my FR version

REPLACE   \1@

Remark that the replacement is \1@ ( instead of @ ). After running this S/R, in the same conditions as above, we get similar results ;-)

However, note that, if we just search for the FR or try to mark the FR zones, that second syntax, without \K, is quite annoying and not really exact, as it does select FR, but it also selects :

The BSR part and anything till FR
Anything since last match till FR

Thirdly, Alan, regarding the precedence of the region to search for, over the effective FR match :

As your FR regex (?s-i:F.*?R) contains a range of any char, EOL included, you need to restrict this area to an area not containing the ESR, too ! Thus, this fact changes your regex to :

SEARCH    (?x)  (?: (?s-i:B.*?S.*?R)  |  (?!\A)\G )  (?s-i:(?!E.*?S.*?R).)*?  \K  (?s-i:F((?!E.*?S.*?R).)*?R)   #  With your FR version
                                                                                  <--- Find Regex---- FR --->
REPLACE   @

Of course, your regex does not match exactly like my FR regex ! But the matches are correct and correctly limited in the BSR •••• ESR area. Moreover, the step by step replacement is still effective and give the picture below :

Best Regards,

guy038

P.S. :

An other example :

Let’s consider this text :

/

/

The licenses/for most {software are/designed to/take away your} freedom/to share/and change it.

{By contrast, the/GNU General Public/License is } intended to/guarantee/your {freedom/to share and/change} free/software

This General/Public License/applies to {most of/the Free Software/Foundation's software}

{/}

/
/

Paste it in a new tab
Move back to the beginning ( Ctrl + Home )

Now, let’s suppose that we want to change any / character into a @ character, but ONLY in areas delimited by curly braces { •••• }. Note that, in our sample, the second line contains two { ••••• } zones. So :

FR = /
RR = @
BSR = \{
ESR = \}

And gives this overall S/R :

SEARCH    (?x-si) (?:  \{  |  (?!\A)\G  )  (?: (?!\}). )*?  \K  /

REPLACE   @

Remark that the part (?:(?!ESR).)*? , implicitly, defines an area which does not contain any } character till the next / char to search for. In other words, it tries to find a / before a possible further } character !

=> After 1 click on the Find Next button and 9 clicks on the Replace button, you’ll see that all occurrences of /, which are included in areas between curly braces ONLY, have been replaced, as expected, with the @ symbol ;-))