regex cannot find to replace

[eschwartz]

calibre, version 1.22.0
ERROR: Cannot replace: Currently selected text does not match the search query. You must first click Find, before trying to replace

I get this message after searching for

<p([^<>]*)>*(?=[^<])

It successfully matches the beginning of this paragraph:

<p>*Drummond considered this, realized that it was not particularly reassuring, but decided not to pursue it. “Assuming you do become my vice president, sir, I expect you have some ideas for how to handle this whole Event business? You are, after all, obviously a magical person yourself. What will you propose? Full disclosure of the wizard community? Equality between our worlds? Peaceful integration of our different cultures?”</p>

(Both asterisks in red should be unicode nbsp, but I guess the editor doesn't let pasting it?)

So after clicking Find, it matches the text, then when I click Replace it claims the text it selected doesn't match???

This doesn't happen when I don't use the lookahead.

EDIT: Of course I did work around this by just grabbing the match instead of using lookahead for it, then replacing with \2

[kovidgoyal]

Thats because you are using a look ahead expression. That cannot match a selected fragment of text, since that selected fragment has no ahead to look at.

[eschwartz]

Then what is the point of a lookahead? If you can only find with it and it breaks the replace part of S&R.

[kovidgoyal]

Use replace all.

[eschwartz]

OK then. Thanks.

[kovidgoyal]

Or dont terminate your search expression with a lookahead. In your case use something like

(<p.*?>)\xa0([^<>])

and replace with

\1\2 (assuming getting rid of the nbsp is what you want to do)

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Or dont terminate your search expression with a lookahead. In your case use something like

(<p.*?>)\xa0([^<>])

and replace with

\1\2

That's what I did even before I reported it. I just figured it was confusing and maybe not supposed to happen, so I reported it.

But it's good to know I can just use replace all as well.

[kovidgoyal]

It's a tradeoff. I can remove that safety step that checks if the current selection matches the current find expression before doing a replace. That would get rid of the problem with lookbehind/lookahead terminated expressions.

But that makes it possible to accidentally damage the text if you change the selection manually and then forget you did that before clicking replace.

[eschwartz]

You can't just use the last found match?

[kovidgoyal]

The last found match is stored as the current selection, which is user modifiable, there is no way for the editor to know when you click find that you later intend to click replace instead of say typing to overwrite the found selection.

[kovidgoyal]

https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...ff90e93fa70598

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...ff90e93fa70598

Yes, I just saw this on the commits list. Thanks!