Find and replace line not starting with pattern and copy text from previous line

[nitin jain]

I have CSV text file which have Chat logs starting with “[” and after that it contains system date & time, there are few lines which not starting with square brackets as chat user may have sent multiples line in that message. Now i want to find all those lines and copy the previous line date & time with sender name in starting of that.

how do I find lines not starting with “[” and than replace text from previous line user with “[ ]” time stamp.

Here is input and desired output file .

INPUT

[25/11/19, 16:26:33] Roger: Not received mail
[25/11/19, 16:27:04] Niks: Refresh
[25/11/19, 16:28:12] Roger: Plz send again
[25/11/19, 16:28:55] Niks: ok sent
[25/11/19, 16:29:14] Roger: Received ok thanks
[25/11/19, 16:29:38] Niks: 👍🏻
‎[26/11/19, 13:20:31] Roger: ‎<attached: 00000110-PHOTO-2019-11-26-13-20-31.jpg>
[26/11/19, 13:20:57] Roger: For 60000 units
balance trf 59160
[26/11/19, 13:30:55] Niks: Units Batch code
SEGX-TWHB5Z 2500
3CRD-QAMXD9 2500
E4ZY-7HNK35 2500
SGMV-FR4P5Y 2500
[26/11/19, 13:32:55] Roger: Ok thanks

============================================
Output

[25/11/19, 16:26:33] Roger: Not received mail
[25/11/19, 16:27:04] Niks: Refresh
[25/11/19, 16:28:12] Roger: Plz send again
[25/11/19, 16:28:55] Niks: ok sent
[25/11/19, 16:29:14] Roger: Received ok thanks
[25/11/19, 16:29:38] Niks: 👍🏻
‎[26/11/19, 13:20:31] Roger: ‎<attached: 00000110-PHOTO-2019-11-26-13-20-31.jpg>
[26/11/19, 13:20:57] Roger: For 60000 units
[26/11/19, 13:20:57] Roger: balance trf 59160
[26/11/19, 13:30:55] Niks: Units Batch code
[26/11/19, 13:30:55] Niks: SEGX-TWHB5Z 2500
[26/11/19, 13:30:55] Niks: 3CRD-QAMXD9 2500
[26/11/19, 13:30:55] Niks: E4ZY-7HNK35 2500
[26/11/19, 13:30:55] Niks: SGMV-FR4P5Y 2500
[26/11/19, 13:32:55] Roger: Ok thanks

Finding lines in Yellow color & replace with Orange text which is taken from previous lines.

Thanks in advance

[PeterJones]

@nitin-jain ,

I came up with something that mostly works, except for on the line after the 👍🏻. I haven’t figured out why that is messing up my regex:

• FIND = (?-s)^(\x5B.*?\x5D.*?:\h*).*$\R\K(?!\x5B)
• REPLACE = $1
• SEARCH MODE = regular expression
• REPLACE ALL multiple times, until it’s really all done

The line after the thumbs-up has difficulty because, as @Alan-Kilborn found a couple years back, such chat logs will occasionally have the U+200E LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK peppered throughout… and that photo line contains two instances. So before running the regex I showed, also replace \x{200E} with empty … or I’d suggest [\x{200B}-\x{200F}\x{202A}-\x{202F}] with empty (which will get rid of other zero-width characters).

So run the zero-width replacement first, then REPLACE ALL multiple times on the first one I shared until all the lines have that. (If your longest block is four lines that don’t start with [, you will have to REPLACE ALL four times)

[guy038]

Hello, @nitin-jain, @peterjones and All,

Oh… Peter beats me at it ! Here is my solution, quite similar !

If you are sure that all the dates are in increasing order, simply use the following regex S/R :

• Open the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )

• SEARCH (?-s)^(\[.+\]).+\R\K(?=\w)

• REPLACE \1$0\x20

• Tick the Wrap around option

• Select the Regular repression search mode

• Click several times on the Replace All button, till you see the message 0 occurrences were replaced in entire file

So, from the INPUT text :

[25/11/19, 16:26:33] Roger: Not received mail
[25/11/19, 16:27:04] Niks: Refresh
[25/11/19, 16:28:12] Roger: Plz send again
[25/11/19, 16:28:55] Niks: ok sent
[25/11/19, 16:29:14] Roger: Received ok thanks
[25/11/19, 16:29:38] Niks: 👍🏻
‎[26/11/19, 13:20:31] Roger: ‎<attached: 00000110-PHOTO-2019-11-26-13-20-31.jpg>
[26/11/19, 13:20:57] Roger: For 60000 units
balance trf 59160
[26/11/19, 13:30:55] Niks: Units Batch code
SEGX-TWHB5Z 2500
3CRD-QAMXD9 2500
E4ZY-7HNK35 2500
SGMV-FR4P5Y 2500
[26/11/19, 13:32:55] Roger: Ok thanks

you’ll get the expected OUTPUT result :

[25/11/19, 16:26:33] Roger: Not received mail
[25/11/19, 16:27:04] Niks: Refresh
[25/11/19, 16:28:12] Roger: Plz send again
[25/11/19, 16:28:55] Niks: ok sent
[25/11/19, 16:29:14] Roger: Received ok thanks
[25/11/19, 16:29:38] Niks: 👍🏻
‎[26/11/19, 13:20:31] Roger: ‎<attached: 00000110-PHOTO-2019-11-26-13-20-31.jpg>
[26/11/19, 13:20:57] Roger: For 60000 units
[26/11/19, 13:20:57] balance trf 59160
[26/11/19, 13:30:55] Niks: Units Batch code
[26/11/19, 13:30:55] SEGX-TWHB5Z 2500
[26/11/19, 13:30:55] 3CRD-QAMXD9 2500
[26/11/19, 13:30:55] E4ZY-7HNK35 2500
[26/11/19, 13:30:55] SGMV-FR4P5Y 2500
[26/11/19, 13:32:55] Roger: Ok thanks

Best regards,

guy038

[guy038]

Hi, all,

I suppose I find out a bug, in our Boost regex engine !

Let’s take this simple example tet :

[]xyz
‎[]xyz
[]xyz
ABC
[]xyz
DEF

Now, the four regexes below, should look for the literal string [] beginning a line, followed with any non-null string and its line-ending chars, ONLY IF not followed with a leading [ symbol !

(?-s)^\\[\\].+\R(?!\\[)

(?-s)^\\[\\].+\r\n(?!\\[)

(?-s)^\x5b\x5d.+\R(?!\x5b)

(?-s)^\x5b\x5d.+\r\n(?!\x5b)

---

Thus, it should only match the txo lines, below :

• The []xyz line before the string ABC

• The []xyz line before the string DEF

But, unfortunately, it also matches the first line []xyz ???

Am I wrong in any way, in this matter ?

BR

guy038

[Alan Kilborn]

@guy038 said in Find and replace line not starting with pattern and copy text from previous line:

But, unfortunately, it also matches the first line []xyz ???
Am I wrong in any way, in this matter ?

When I copy -n-paste your black box data, there is an LRM in it, which seems to cause your erroneous match!

[PeterJones]

@alan-kilborn said in Find and replace line not starting with pattern and copy text from previous line:

there is an LRM in it, which seems to cause your erroneous match!

Indeed. I was originally going to ask Guy why my regex wasn’t working with the supplied data (the same question Guy asked us), when I happened to left arrow from the [ and stayed on that same line! That told me there was a hidden character, which is why I ran the reveal-hidden-characters script from the old conversation, and I saw the infamous LRM – which is why I added the paragraph to tell @nitin-jain to do the zero-width search/replace before doing the main search/replace.

[guy038]

Hi, @nitin-jain, @peterjones, @alan-kilborn and All,

Ah ah ! Alan, I, first, didn’t understand why you had the LRM sigle in the second line of my text. My second thought was that you created a Python script to make all these fancy Unicode format characters clearly visible ! But, luckily, marking any \x{200e} character did the trick and showed me a thin red mark when this special char is present !

---

So, @nitin-jain, as @peterjones said, use this simple regex S/R, below, to get rid of these format characters !

SEARCH [\x{200B}-\x{200F}\x{202A}-\x{202F}]

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

However, verify that this operation does not break down your text in any way ! I personally saw this case, while pasting Unicode characters from a long list, produced by this excellent and valuable site, regarding Unicode :

https://r12a.github.io/uniview/

---

Now, I’m pleased to note that there is no bug of our Boost regex engine, in this matter, as that special LRM char is quite a character different from a [ symbol !

BR

guy038

[Alan Kilborn]

@guy038 said in Find and replace line not starting with pattern and copy text from previous line:

Alan, … you created a Python script to make all these fancy Unicode format characters clearly visible

Well, yes, I did. :-)