How do I find some text but skip some other slightly different text?

Scott Nielson

@PeterJones Like you said, I used the RegEx, (?s)(?<=mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>)-(.+?) *(?=) and that skips finding the immediate next and finds the next one but I want the RegEx to skip replacing a “hyphen” or “dash” if the is immediately after the “hyphen” or “dash” (without any space in between) which means the (.+?) is not needed here. There’s a difference between “finding” and “replacing”. Please help!

Scott Nielson

@PeterJones When this is found: -), with no space in between, no replacement should happen.

PeterJones

@Scott-Nielson said in How do I find some text but skip some other slightly different text?:

(.+?)

change (.+?) => ((?:(?!).)+?) – this gets complicated, and you will need to study the manual and play with it to fully understand. But basically, the (?!) is a negative lookahead saying that the next characters cannot be , but doesn’t grab any; then the . following grabs the first character that doesn’t start . Then the ()+ says continuing doing this (grab one character as long as it isn’t the start if ) as long as I can.

PeterJones

This post is deleted!

Scott Nielson

@PeterJones Like you said, I used the RegEx, (?s)(?<=mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>)-((?:(?!).)+?) and that finds the hyphen/dash and the immediate next character (which is not what I want). I think, we need a RegEx with a (SKIP) in it.

PeterJones

@Scott-Nielson

You got rid of parts of your previous regex which I didn’t say to remove, which my answer assumed would still be used. If you really need SKIP, you’ll have to wait for someone else, because I have never understood it. But I personally don’t think you need it.

DATA =

mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>-blah blah blah</span> <!-- yes this one -->
mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>-</span> <!-- not this one -->
mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>- </span> <!-- unsure about this one -->

FIND = (?s)(?<=mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>)-((?:(?!).)+?) *(?=)

That seems to match what you said, where you want it to not match if it’s - with no space between; you weren’t clear whether it should match with a space in between; the one I had intended you to use (which I just showed) assumed one with hyphen space span should match, like in my screenshot. If not, then tweak it again to not allow spaces before the span

FIND = (?s)(?<=mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>)-((?:(?!\h*).)+?) *(?=)

At this point though, if you want more help, you will have to do a better job showing your problem – what you have, what you get, and what you actually want, without irrelevant bits – and do a better job of doing what we suggest; you will also have to wait for someone who knows FAIL, and has the ability to answer in ways that you will understand – so you’ll have to have patience while waiting for someone else to show up.

Scott Nielson

@PeterJones The RegEx you gave me worked like a charm and I’m happy with it but if someone does post about how to use SKIP and FAIL, it’d be nice.

Alan Kilborn

@Scott-Nielson

For what it’s worth, here are some links I’ve collected which discuss (*SKIP), (*FAIL), or both:

Scott Nielson

@Alan-Kilborn This RegEx, -(*SKIP)(*F)|(\a)|(?s)(?<=mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>)-(.*?) *(?=) skipped what I wanted it to and replaced only what I wanted it to. Thanks a million!

Scott Nielson

@Alan-Kilborn Sorry, that should be, -(*SKIP)(*F)|(?s)(?<=mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>)-(.*?) *(?=) - I forgot to copy the last RegEx and your system doesn’t let me edit what I post after 3 minutes!