Regex problem: Trying to replace surrounding text without effecting the middle

[ghostyjack]

I'm trying to change the formatting on a book I'm working on.

At the beginning of each chapter, there is a chapter number, followed by a heading that is unique to each chapter. Underneath the heading is the start of the actual text.

The problem I have is that the text currently begins with <p> and I want to change it to <p class="newscene2">.

As this book as over 300 chapters, I didn't want to have to manually change each one. So what I want to do is to be able to search for for both the heading and the next <p> irespective of the content of the heading line and then replace the <p> with my new tag, but leave the content between intact.

I've found that:

<p class="heading">.+</p>

  <p>

will locate each entry, but I can't fathom the replace command. I've tried:

<p class="heading">.+</p>

  <p class="newscene2">

but all it does is replace all the content with .+ and not leave all the text alone.

So what am I doing wrong?

[Doitsu]

You need to enclose the chapter number variable in parentheses. (I used \d+ because it searches for numbers.) Try:

Find:

<p class="heading">(\d+)</p>\n\n  <p>

Replace:

<p class="heading">\1</p>\n\n  <p class="newscene2">

BTW, since it's a heading, I'd recommend enclosing it in heading tags, which will allow you to automatically generate a TOC in Sigil. You could also combine both headings. For example:

Find:

<p class="heading">(\d+)</p>\n\n  <p>(.*?)</p>

Replace:

<h3 class="heading" title="\1 – \2">\1<br /><span class="newscene2">\2</span></h3>

Note: The above regex should work in Sigil 0.53 because it automatically adds two spaces and a line break between the two paragraphs. If you use a regular text editor, simply delete the spaces and the line-break characters (\n) in the regexes.

[ghostyjack]

Thanks, thats useful, but in this case.

The chapter number is above it in h2 tags with a title line in that is used for the toc.

The heading line (of should I say subheading?) is going to be in a different style to the Chapter number, hence the separate lines.

Beside, I don't want to change the heading part, I want to change the line directly below it. The problem being is that that line just has a <p> tag at the start, just like most of the lines in the chapter so there is nothing to distinguish it from all the others.

As this <p> tag is the only one that has a <p class="heading"> tag above it, I thiugh it would be useful to search for all the <p class="heading"> with a <p> below it and then only change the <p> to <p class="newscene2">. I don't want the heading line changed.

What I have now:

<h2 id="ch01" title="Chapter One: This is a heading">One</h2>

<p class="heading">This is a Heading</p>

<p>Blah blah blah</p>

I want it to change to:

<h2 id="ch01" title="Chapter One: This is a heading">One</h2>

<p class="heading">This is a Heading</p>

<p class="newscene2">Blah blah blah</p>

[ghostyjack]

I didn't quite get what you were refering to and couldn't try it.

I've now had a chance and by changing it to:

<p class="heading">(.+)</p>\n\n  <p>

and replace with:

<p class="heading">\1</p>\n\n  <p class="newscene2">

it seemed to work.

This found the instances and made the correct replacement without effecting the text in the heading.

Thanks very much for this.