Find and Replace with increments

Sean Moody

I have a text file that is made up of roughly 500+ of the following repeating format:

{
  "valueSource": "opc",
  "historyTimeDeadband": 5,
  "opcItemPath": "ns\u003d1;s\u003d[Extruder19]Master_die_zone_1.PVHAlarm",
  "historicalDeadband": 0.5,
  "alarms": [
    {
      "setpointA": 1.0,
      "name": "Master die zone 1 PVHAlarm",
      "priority": "High",
      "displayPath": "Extruder19"
    }
  ],
  "historicalDeadbandStyle": "Discrete",
  "tagGroup": "Default",
  "historyTagGroup": "Alarm Historical",
  "tagType": "AtomicTag",
  "dataType": "Boolean",
  "historyProvider": "BOL_IgnitionDB",
  "name": "Master_die_zone_1_PVHAlarm",
  "historyEnabled": false,
  "sampleMode": "TagGroup",
  "opcServer": "Ignition OPC UA Server"
},

For this, they are all the exact same right now, but I want to change some parts of it. Wherever it says “zone_1” (Lines 4,9, and 20) it need to replace it with “zone” + incrementing numbers, so the second group of this would read “zone_2”, the third will read “zone_3” and so on. What is a way I can do that using notepad++?

PeterJones

@sean-moody

With just Notepad++ and nothing else, you cannot: the replacement engine cannot “auto increment”. If you are willing to use a plugin, it’s easy.

You can install the PythonScript plugin, and use the example add_1 that’s in the documentation; you’d have to change the search regular expression in the script to suit your needs (off the top of my head, without trying, it would be something like r'zone_(\d+)' for the search string)

This FAQ entry describes how to install the PythonScript plugin and create a new script in PythonScript. And using Plugins > Python Script > Context-Help will take you to the documentation, and searching that documentation for add_1 will take you to the example script.

Please note that the example in the documentation adds one to the number found in the search; what you want is a counter that adds one to the previous value of the counter and replaces the found string with a string based on that counter instead.

You can search this forum for examples of add_1 and related pythonscript replacements … and I think this post probably contains close to what you want in terms of the counter.

Sean Moody

@peterjones thank you for the detailed response, Apologize if this is a stupid question but how would I make the python code for notepad++? I have used python before but never for notepad++ so I am not sure how it works at all. Would I just write “editor.rereplace(r’zone (\d+)', add_1)” on the python file?

PeterJones

@sean-moody ,

how would I make the python code for notepad++? …

I rather thought I already answered that in my last post and the FAQ entry that I pointed you to. Plus the other discussion, with the counter example has the step-by-step detailed instructions embedded in the script to copy/paste. I am not sure how much more explicit about the process that I can be.

Would I just write … on the python file?

If I assume that by “on the python file” meant “inside the file that I created when I followed the instructions in the FAQ, and on the line that currently has the editor.rereplace from that script”, then yes.

When I noticed that you had typed without an underscore in your reply, I looked back and now see that in your example data, lines 4 and 20 have the underscore but line 9 does not, so my guess at an expression will definitely not work for you. And that there is more than one instance of zone_# in each block, so I am now assuming that you really want to maintain the same # within each top-level {...} block.

That’s much more complicated than I originally understood it, and a simple change to the counter example won’t be sufficient for your needs.

PeterJones

@Sean-Moody ,

I think this script will do what you want

# encoding=utf-8
"""https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/23149/find-and-replace-with-increments/4

This will start by matching text from `{` at the beginnig of a line to `}` or `},` at the beginning of a line

Inside those groups, it will replace all "zone_#" or "zone #" with the value of the counter
The counter will increment between `{...}` groups
"""
from Npp import *
import re

counter = 1

def replace_group(m):
    global counter
    out = re.sub(r'(?<=zone[ _])\d+', str(counter), m.group(0))
    counter = counter + 1
    return out

console.clear()
editor.beginUndoAction()
editor.rereplace(r'(?s)^{\h*$.*?^},?\h*$', replace_group)
editor.endUndoAction()

The editor.rereplace line matches from { at the beginning of a line to } or }, at the beginning of a line. It then calls replace_group() on that match. The second function does the search-and-replace inside that group, looking for zone followed by either _ or space, followed by one or more digits, and replaces those digits with the current value of the counter. Every group of { to }, will increment the counter by one, so each chunk will get a unique number, but use the same number inside.

Assumptions:

That your example data isn’t missing leading spaces, because the regex assumes the { and }, are at the beginning of the line.
- That there aren’t any other { and }, at the beginning of lines embedded inside (so nicely indented and properly formulated json)
That zone_1 and zone 1 within a single {…} block should all get the same counter value
That you don’t have any zone_### inside your blocks that you don’t want changed (you didn’t show any, but…)