Mass Find and Replace

portersprings · 08-20-2014, 12:59 PM

I am Sigil Newbie.

I am looking for a way to don mass find and replace of simple patterns like Find "dog" Replace "cat"

I am now doing this via the Spellcheck process but I am having to do it over and over.

Potentially I will have f&r lists containing 100s of items that I will want to run over 100s of sigl content pages.

What are good ways to do this?

I see Saved Search tool but I can't figure out how it works from the documentation available.

As I said, I am currently doing this via Spellcheck. Is there some way to "save" spellcheck conversions and then rerun them later?

Thanks in advance for any light that you can shed on this matter.

mrmikel · 08-20-2014, 01:11 PM

From Search, use the find and replace function and choose replace all, if I am understanding what you want.

BEWARE!!! BACK UP YOUR DOCUMENT FIRST! Replace all can not be undone in Sigil.

After entering your search criteria, right click to save the search. Save search also allows to load saved searches.

Toxaris · 08-20-2014, 01:49 PM

In the saved searches window you can also group various searches. If you then select the folder and say replace all, all actions in the folder will be executed in order.

theducks · 08-20-2014, 01:50 PM

newbies to S&R should stay far away from Replace all's

There is an art to writing search terms that ONLY catch precisely what you want.

Code:

F: \scat\s
R: dog

which won't get catalog, catastrophe...

Extra care is needed to not modify the same term OUTSIDE the <body> block

mrmikel · 08-20-2014, 01:59 PM

I had a time recently when I wanted to capitalize all the instances of ATIS, a WWII agency. I also got sATISfaction as well!

Tex2002ans · 08-20-2014, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theducks

newbies to S&R should stay far away from Replace all's

There is an art to writing search terms that ONLY catch precisely what you want.

Code:

F: \scat\s
R: dog

which won't get catalog, catastrophe...

Extra care is needed to not modify the same term OUTSIDE the <body> block

You wouldn't want "\s" in this case, "\s" matches any Whitespace Character. This on its face sounds reasonable if you want to catch a single word.... although it only catches " cat " with a space before+after.

You would want to use a Word Boundary, which is "\b". More information on it can be found here:

http://www.regular-expressions.info/wordboundaries.html

This would be a more accurate Regex:

Code:

F: \bcat\b
R: dog

Using \s would fail if you had these examples where no space is before AND after the word "cat":

Quote:

He kept on chanting, "cat jumped over the moon!"
"This was the cat's saucer."
He pushed the cat.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrmikel

I had a time recently when I wanted to capitalize all the instances of ATIS, a WWII agency. I also got sATISfaction as well!

Same with this case, you would want:

Code:

F: \batis\b
R: ATIS

I also second everyone saying BACK UP FIRST. And I would recommend against doing a Replace All, make sure that you are Replacing these one-by-one, and just double-checking to see that everything is working as you want it. It is very easy to make a simple mistake in a Regex and really mangle your document.

08-20-2014, 12:59 PM	#1
portersprings Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2014 Device: various	Mass Find and Replace I am Sigil Newbie. I am looking for a way to don mass find and replace of simple patterns like Find "dog" Replace "cat" I am now doing this via the Spellcheck process but I am having to do it over and over. Potentially I will have f&r lists containing 100s of items that I will want to run over 100s of sigl content pages. What are good ways to do this? I see Saved Search tool but I can't figure out how it works from the documentation available. As I said, I am currently doing this via Spellcheck. Is there some way to "save" spellcheck conversions and then rerun them later? Thanks in advance for any light that you can shed on this matter.

08-20-2014, 01:11 PM	#2
mrmikel Color me gone Posts: 2,089 Karma: 1445295 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Central Oregon Coast Device: PRS-300	From Search, use the find and replace function and choose replace all, if I am understanding what you want. BEWARE!!! BACK UP YOUR DOCUMENT FIRST! Replace all can not be undone in Sigil. After entering your search criteria, right click to save the search. Save search also allows to load saved searches. Last edited by mrmikel; 08-20-2014 at 01:15 PM.

08-20-2014, 01:50 PM	#4
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 31,039 Karma: 60358908 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	newbies to S&R should stay far away from Replace all's There is an art to writing search terms that ONLY catch precisely what you want. Code: F: \scat\s R: dog which won't get catalog, catastrophe... Extra care is needed to not modify the same term OUTSIDE the <body> block

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08-20-2014, 01:49 PM	#3
Toxaris Wizard Posts: 4,520 Karma: 121692313 Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Heemskerk, NL Device: PRS-T1, Kobo Touch, Kobo Aura	In the saved searches window you can also group various searches. If you then select the folder and say replace all, all actions in the folder will be executed in order.

08-20-2014, 01:59 PM	#5
mrmikel Color me gone Posts: 2,089 Karma: 1445295 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Central Oregon Coast Device: PRS-300	I had a time recently when I wanted to capitalize all the instances of ATIS, a WWII agency. I also got sATISfaction as well!

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