Broken quotations

Paxman53 · 03-10-2012, 10:40 AM

Hi Everyone,

Does anyone know a regex code that will close a broken quote.

e.g.

At present:

‘I have a meeting in five minutes with the Prefect of Police, on the Mayeur case.

Tell me about yourself as we go. Oh, and I’ll expect you to take minutes, all right?’

Should be:

‘I have a meeting in five minutes with the Prefect of Police, on the Mayeur case. Tell me about yourself as we go. Oh, and I’ll expect you to take minutes, all right?’

I seem to have a lot of occurences of this in the conversions I am doing. Other regex codes close gaps when there is an obvious break in the sentence i.e. a line will begin with a lower case character.
But I can't seem to find one that does what I need above.

Thanks in advance

DiapDealer · 03-10-2012, 10:54 AM

Kind of hard to do this with typographic quotes (or even straight quotes) with any sort of automated/logical approach. Since there's no difference between an apostrophe and a closing single quote (and other special cases where opening quotes don't always have a matching closing quote), it's not really very feasible with a regex expression (especially when any F&R—that's to be trusted, anyway—must take place in Code (html) view).

Finding a regexp that does this accurately in all cases will be very unlikely. An external program/script that used heuristic logic may stand a better chance, but will probably be just as hard to come across (or write).

mmat1 · 03-10-2012, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paxman53

Does anyone know a regex code that will close a broken quote.

Yup, this one will work with your sample:

Code:

(<p class="calibre6">‘.+?)</p>\s+?<p class="calibre6">(.+?’</p>)

Replace with "\1 \2"

As stated above, this should be used with caution in step by step mode. (Mode: regex dotall)

mrmikel · 03-11-2012, 08:36 AM

It will take nearly as long to do with regex as by hand, but it will be a little bit easier if your mind doesn't wander.

Thanks for the code, mmat1. Adding it to my collection.

Paxman53 · 03-12-2012, 04:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmat1

Yup, this one will work with your sample:

Code:

(<p class="calibre6">‘.+?)</p>\s+?<p class="calibre6">(.+?’</p>)

Replace with "\1 \2"

As stated above, this should be used with caution in step by step mode. (Mode: regex dotall)

Thankyou Mmati1

It worked perfectly

Much appreciated

mmat1 · 03-12-2012, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paxman53

Thankyou

you're welcome

03-10-2012, 10:40 AM	#1
Paxman53 Connoisseur Posts: 55 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: 7" Tablet - Aldiko Reader Premium	Broken quotations Hi Everyone, Does anyone know a regex code that will close a broken quote. e.g. At present: <p class="calibre6">‘I have a meeting in five minutes with the Prefect of Police, on the Mayeur case.</p> <p class="calibre6">Tell me about yourself as we go. Oh, and I’ll expect you to take minutes, all right?’</p> Should be: <p class="calibre6">‘I have a meeting in five minutes with the Prefect of Police, on the Mayeur case. Tell me about yourself as we go. Oh, and I’ll expect you to take minutes, all right?’</p> I seem to have a lot of occurences of this in the conversions I am doing. Other regex codes close gaps when there is an obvious break in the sentence i.e. a line will begin with a lower case character. But I can't seem to find one that does what I need above. Thanks in advance

03-10-2012, 10:54 AM	#2
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 27,549 Karma: 193191846 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	Kind of hard to do this with typographic quotes (or even straight quotes) with any sort of automated/logical approach. Since there's no difference between an apostrophe and a closing single quote (and other special cases where opening quotes don't always have a matching closing quote), it's not really very feasible with a regex expression (especially when any F&R—that's to be trusted, anyway—must take place in Code (html) view). Finding a regexp that does this accurately in all cases will be very unlikely. An external program/script that used heuristic logic may stand a better chance, but will probably be just as hard to come across (or write). Last edited by DiapDealer; 03-10-2012 at 10:58 AM.

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03-11-2012, 08:36 AM	#4
mrmikel Color me gone Posts: 2,089 Karma: 1445295 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Central Oregon Coast Device: PRS-300	It will take nearly as long to do with regex as by hand, but it will be a little bit easier if your mind doesn't wander. Thanks for the code, mmat1. Adding it to my collection.