Regex: Show the string result from searching ALL FILES, between 2 parts

Robin Cruise

hello, I have a folder with 1200 html files. Each file contains this texh, but with different links. Each link sends to a particular folder in which the website is translated.

I want to find in the folder C:\\FOLDER all links that are in the /en/ domain. In the case below, after search in ALL FILES, the output must be: quo-vadis

<!-- ANTER-1 -->
		<div class="srtt">
                <div align="right">

                  <a href="https://website.com/books.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_ro.jpg" title="ro" alt="ro" width="28" height="19" /></a>&nbsp; <a href="https://website.com/fr/laptop.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_fr.jpg" title="fr" alt="fr" width="28" height="19" /></a>&nbsp; <a href="https://website.com/en/quo-vadis.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_en.jpg" title="en" alt="en" width="28" height="19" /></a>&nbsp; <a href="https://website.com/es/alexandre.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_es.jpg" title="es" alt="es" width="28" height="19" /></a>&nbsp; <a href="https://website.com/pt/cars-drive.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_pt.jpg" title="pt" alt="pt" width="28" height="19" /></a>&nbsp; <a href="https://website.com/ar/hardware.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_ae.jpg" width="28" height="19" title="ar" alt="ar" /></a>&nbsp; <a href="https://website.com/zh/love-hate.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_zh.jpg" width="28" height="19" title="zh" alt="zh" /></a>&nbsp; <a href="https://website.com/hi/dionosaur.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_hi.jpg" width="28" height="19" title="hi" alt="hi" /></a>&nbsp; <a href="https://website.com/de/planet-freedom.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_de.jpg" width="28" height="19" title="de" alt="de" /></a>&nbsp; <a href="https://website.com/ru/jude-law.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_ru.jpg" width="28" height="19" title="ru" alt="ru" /></a>
</div>
</div>
<!-- ANTER-2 -->

So, I made a REGEX:

(?s)(?<=FIRST-PART).*?(?=SECOND-PART)

and in my case:

(?s)(?<=  <a href="https://website.com/en/).*?(?=.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_en.jpg)

The ONLY PROBLEM is that, if I search in ALL FILES from the folder, I will not get just the ENGLISH links, I get all the links…

Robin Cruise

maybe @guy038 has a better aproach

Neil Schipper

@robin-cruise

It sounds like you don’t realize that your task requires two phases and that you are only doing the first.

First phase gathers all lines that contain the text of interest into a search results area. I think you’ve achieved this. Copy these results into a new editor file.

The second task is to do a find & replace on this new file, stripping everything but the file names you care about. Do you know how to do replacement? Have you spent a little time with https://npp-user-manual.org/docs/searching/ and tried a few simple cases?

Also, I see your look-behinds and look-aheads contain characters that you want treated as literals but are actually regex directives. It may be that by luck this was not causing you a problem (because files you were searching probably had no text that would produce false matches). But to be safe you should surround some text with \Q & \E (the regex doc calls this “verbatim mode” or “quoted”), thus:

(?s)(?<=\Q  <a href="https://website.com/en/\E).*?(?=\Q.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_en.jpg\E)

Neil Schipper

@neil-schipper said in Regex: Show the string result from searching ALL FILES, between 2 parts:

Do you know how to do replacement?

Here is some homework for you, in case someone else doesn’t come save you with a complete solution.

Using a regex, convert:

big red car
big blue car
big black car
big green car

to

red
blue
black
green

If you can figure this out, you’ll be 5% along the way of being a regex master, able to solve many problems on your own.

Alan Kilborn

@neil-schipper said in Regex: Show the string result from searching ALL FILES, between 2 parts:

in case someone else doesn’t come save you with a complete solution.

This may be unlikely as the OP is a “repeat regex asker” offender. :-)

Neil Schipper

@alan-kilborn said in Regex: Show the string result from searching ALL FILES, between 2 parts:

the OP is a “repeat regex asker” offender. :-)

Well, you and @PeterJones and @Ekopalypse and @guy038 and @terry-r are all serious repeat offenders of the “don’t spoil 'em rotten” rule.

I’ve been guilty too but I’m trying to reform.

Robin Cruise

But to be safe you should surround some text with \Q & \E (the regex doc calls this “verbatim mode” or “quoted”), thus:

(?s)(?<=\Q  <a href="https://website.com/en/\E).*?(?=\Q.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_en.jpg\E)

@neil-schipper thank you sir. I test your regex, but it gives the same result as my regex. So, If I search in “All Files” with your regex, the result is not only the english part: quo-vadis, but all the links to all languages folder. The same as my regex result.

It is king of tricky…hard to find a solution.

Alan Kilborn

@robin-cruise

On the data you’ve shown, @Neil-Schipper 's regex matches the desired result – I tried it.

If you have a case where it doesn’t, perhaps you should show that data.

Robin Cruise

@alan-kilborn OK,

BUT how can I copy all results (from each of the html) into a new notepad++ file? Because, If I try to search in the folder with “Find in Files” option, cannot do that.

So, as to test my idea. Please try to make 2 html/txt file with my content from the beginning of my post. Then try to search and copy with the regex (“Find in Files” ) only the result I want, so I can obtain something like this:

quo-vadis
quo-vadis

You will see that this is not possible with my regex or with @neil-schipper regex

Neil Schipper

@robin-cruise

@robin-cruise said:

So, If I search in “All Files” with your regex, the result is not only the english part …

You did not read my first post carefully.

You must understand that your task requires several steps.

Really.

Several steps.

There is no regex that you can use in a “Find in Files” that will output a list of the /en/ filenames as you require.

There is
no regex
that you can use in a “Find in Files”
that will output a list of the /en/ filenames as you require.

You have succeeded in doing the first step.

You must learn to do the second step.

Before doing the second step, start a new empty file, copy text from Search Results (pane or window) into this new file. Can you do this?

After that, a new Find & Replace must be carried out.

Before learning how to do that, let’s look at the homework I gave.

The parts of the regex docs that are important for the homework and your problem are:

Capture Groups and Backreferences

    (subset) ⇒ Numbered Capture Group: Parentheses mark a subset of the regular expression, also known as a subset expression or capture group. The string matched by the contents of the parentheses (indicated by subset in this example) can be re-used with a backreference or as part of a replace operation

Substitutions

$ℕ, ${ℕ}, \ℕ ⇒ Returns what matched the ℕth subexpression (numbered capture group), where ℕ is a positive integer (1 or larger).

Now try each of these find and replace operations on the homework text. (You can use Undo = Ctl-z after each operation):

Find: (big) red car
Replace with: $1 and also ZZ$1ZZ and also ZZ $1 ZZ

Find: (big) (red) (car)
Replace with: \3 and also ZZ \2 ZZ and also ZZ$3ZZ ZZ$2ZZ$1ZZ and also \3\2\1 and also ${3} ${2} ${1} and also ${2} ${2} ${3} ${3} ${1}

Try making a very small change to Find text and see what happens.

Try making a very small change to the Replace text and see what happens.

Make a good effort.

If you have trouble, give examples of what is not working the way you expect.

Robin Cruise

@neil-schipper super, yes, I got it.

I copy all results into a new text file with mine or yours regex.

FIND: .*((?s)(?<=FIRST-PART).*?(?=SECOND-PART)).*
FIND: .*((?s)(?<=\QFIRST-PART\E).*?(?=\QSECOND-PART\E)).*

In my case:

FIND: .*((?s)(?<=  <a href="https://website.com/en/).*?(?=.html"><img src="index_files/flag_lang_en.jpg)).*

REPLACE BY: \1\3

Alan Kilborn

@neil-schipper said in Regex: Show the string result from searching ALL FILES, between 2 parts:

copy text from Search Results (pane or window) into this new file.

There are 2 ways to do this, depending on whether or not you need information about the files to carry over in the copy.

This method will get you the search/file/line info along with the lines-of-match:

will get:

Search "t" (2 hits in 1 file of 1 searched)
  new 1 (2 hits)
	Line 1: (?s)(?!.*this_is_not_included).*
	Line 1: (?s)(?!.*this_is_not_included).*

This method will get you only the line data of the match:

will get:

(?s)(?!.*this_is_not_included).*

Note that in the second example, since there are 2 results but the matched lines are the same line, only ONE copy of the line data is put into the clipboard.