<![CDATA[How do I replace strings of text while retaining numbers in middle of the line?]]>So, I am modding a game and have a .txt file in which I need to replace multiple, possibly hundreds of lines of this type :

owns = 116

to this

116 = { country_or_non_sovereign_subject_holds = ROOT }

The numbers after ‘owns =’ can be anything between 1-5000, so it can have 1 to 4 digits

What would be the easiest way to replace all of the lines in this file?

]]>https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/20837/how-do-i-replace-strings-of-text-while-retaining-numbers-in-middle-of-the-lineRSS for NodeMon, 13 Apr 2026 20:47:42 GMTFri, 05 Mar 2021 10:56:17 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to How do I replace strings of text while retaining numbers in middle of the line? on Fri, 12 Mar 2021 08:43:45 GMT]]>Hello,
You can replace strings of text while retaining numbers in the middle of the line using RegEx.
Follow the steps:
Open your document in N++.
Go to the start of the document by clicking on ctrl+home.
Open The Replace Dialogue Box (ctrl+h).
Under search, mode Select regular expression.
write the following in the fields.
Find what: (?i)(?s)owns = (\d{1,4})
Replace with: $1 = { country_or_non_sovereign_subject_holds = ROOT }
Click on Replace All.

Description:
(?s) enables dot matching newlines.
(?i) makes match case insensitive.
(owns) represents a literal string.
(\d) (digit) matches any single digit (same as [0-9] ).
{1,4} matches with a 1 to 4 digit number.
$1 refers to the first match (in this case $1 will refer to the number i.e. 116).

]]>https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/post/63830https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/post/63830Fri, 12 Mar 2021 08:43:45 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How do I replace strings of text while retaining numbers in middle of the line? on Fri, 05 Mar 2021 12:35:22 GMT]]>Worked perfectly, thank you so much!!

]]>https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/post/63610https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/post/63610Fri, 05 Mar 2021 12:35:22 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How do I replace strings of text while retaining numbers in middle of the line? on Fri, 05 Mar 2021 11:43:51 GMT]]>Hi @Juuso-Uu

A regular expression would be fine here. I assume the matching string is placed at the begining of a line. If this is not the case, please remove the ^ symbol from the Search expression.

Search: ^owns = (\d{1,4})
Replace: $1 = { country_or_non_sovereign_subject_holds = ROOT }

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

Take care and have fun!

]]>https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/post/63604https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/post/63604Fri, 05 Mar 2021 11:43:51 GMT