Help with a search & replace

[mmholt]

I want to locate any authors with two or more initials with periods, each separated by a space, like "A. B." or "C. D. E."

I've worked out a regex that will find them, but I can't figure out how to remove the space between two initials. Help?

[Manichean]

I don't understand what you want to remove. Could you post some examples of what values you currently have in your library and what you want to change them to?

Spaces can best be matched by using either a space or \s for general whitespace matching.

[chaley]

Search field: authors
Search for: (\w\.) (?=\w\.)
Replace with: \1

[mmholt]

Originally Posted by Manichean

I don't understand what you want to remove. Could you post some examples of what values you currently have in your library and what you want to change them to?

If an author's name contains a string like "A. A. A." or "A. A." I wanted to replace those with "A.A.A." or "A.A."

Originally Posted by chaley

Search field: authors
Search for: (\w\.) (?=\w\.)
Replace with: \1

That does exactly what I wanted - thank you very much. But I don't understand why it works. Enlighten me, please?

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by mmholt

Enlighten me, please?

Search for: (\w\.) (?=\w\.)
Replace with: \1

\w is a single word character (like a letter)
\w\. is a single word character followed by a period (the \. means a period, while the dot alone without the escape backslash is a wild card for any character.)
So "(\w\.) " means a single word character followed by a period followed by a space (note the space there).

(?=\w\.) means to only find "a single word character followed by a period followed by a space" if the space is followed by "a single word character followed by a period". The pattern (?= is a positive lookahead assertion. It lets the preceding match only when the following matches, but the lookahead part doesn't "eat up" any of the string.

For example, the regex "Isaac (?=Asimov)" will match "Isaac " only if it’s followed by "Asimov".

[mmholt]

Thanks for all the details. I still don't understand the "Replace with". How does that remove the space?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by mmholt

Thanks for all the details. I still don't understand the "Replace with". How does that remove the space?

I think that should be (a back reference for each match)
\1\2

Since the spac between other match elements is not in side a reference (), it will be lost when replacing only the 2 back references.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by theducks

I think that should be (a back reference for each match)
\1\2

Since the spac between other match elements is not in side a reference (), it will be lost when replacing only the 2 back references.

Actually, I think the way it works is that the entire regex ONLY matches the first occurence of a single word character followed by a period and space.

Since the (?=\w\.) is as chaley says "(?= is a positive lookahead assertion. It lets the preceding match only when the following matches, but the lookahead part doesn't "eat up" any of the string." this means the only characters "consumed" by the reg ex. are the initial sequence "(\w\.) " and that is replaced by the (1) which is that initial \w\. sequence.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by theducks

I think that should be (a back reference for each match)
\1\2

Since he already stated that the S&R worked flawlessly I'm guessing the \2 isn't required.

Originally Posted by theducks

Since the space between other match elements is not in side a reference (), it will be lost when replacing only the 2 back references.

Good explanation.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by theducks

I think that should be (a back reference for each match)
\1\2

No. The second parenthesized expression (the positive lookahead) does not create a group that can be back referenced. Adding the \2 will generate an error, because there is only one group.

Originally Posted by PeterT

Actually, I think the way it works is that the entire regex ONLY matches the first occurence of a single word character followed by a period and space.

It matches N occurrences of "letter dot space" -- an "initial". What it does not match is the last initial, preventing removing the space between that last initial and the following word.

Since the (?=\w\.) is as starson says "(?= is a positive lookahead assertion. It lets the preceding match only when the following matches, but the lookahead part doesn't "eat up" any of the string." this means the only characters "consumed" by the reg ex. are the initial sequence "(\w\.) " and that is replaced by the (1) which is that initial \w\. sequence.

One thing to remember: matching and substitution in calibre's search/replace (and generally in regular expressions) is leftmost non-overlapping. This means that the expression will operate on the first string that matches, then start again at the left side of what remains. Because the lookahead assertion does not consume characters, what "remains" is the next initial, and the regexp process is run again on that initial and whatever follows it. This process repeats until the expression fails to match something, which will happen when there are no remaining initials followed by an initial.

Note that "leftmost-overlapping" does not imply either "adjacent" or "leading". It simply means that the input string is scanned from left to right. For example: regarding adjacent, there is no requirement that there be only one set of initials. Given the rather bizarre author name "A. B. Someword C. D. Lastname", the expression will match the A. and the C., resulting in "A.B. Someword C.D. Lastname". Regarding leading: the name "Joe A. B. Smith" will be changed to "Joe A.B. Smith".

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by mmholt

Thanks for all the details. I still don't understand the "Replace with". How does that remove the space?

You got lots of excellent information, but in case the answer to this question wasn't clear: It removes the space because there is a space after "(\w\.)" in the "Search for" part. That means the space and the word character (followed by period) will all be "eaten up" or as chaley correctly put it "consumed" by the search. Of course, those three characters will only be eaten up if the positive lookahead assertion is matched (another (\w\.) follows the first one.) However the "Replace with" part doesn't have a space. It has just a match for the group of two characters - (\w\.) - word character followed by period. So the three character string: "word character-period-space" that is consumed (subject to the lookahead) gets replaced with a two character string that is the same as the three character string, minus the space. As chaley said, the process then starts again.

Simple

[mmholt]

Thank you all for the awesome replies. It was all very helpful!