Help with regex for adding in a hyphen

africalass · 08-06-2020, 07:35 AM

Hi all!

I haven't used regex in some years, so I wondered if someone could possibly help with a simple expression? I'd be grateful if so, but no problem if not.

I would like to add in some punctuation - either a colon and space, or a space hyphen space, after the first word in the title. Then I want to do the same thing for other books but after the second word. I don't need to bring in anything from any other field, and I don't have any existing punctuation in any of the titles. I will select the books manually as to whether it's after the first / second words.

Thanks for any assistance.

davidfor · 08-06-2020, 08:48 AM

The search for the first one would be:

Code:

(\w+)(.*)

The second would be:

Code:

(\w+ \w+)(.*)

With replacement:

Code:

\1 - \2

With whatever punctuation you want in there.

The above assumes the first word doesn't have a hyphen or apostrophe or some non-letter/number character.

africalass · 08-06-2020, 09:11 AM

Thanks so very much for your time.
I'll have a go now 👍

08-06-2020, 07:35 AM	#1
africalass Connoisseur Posts: 54 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Various - sometimes UK, sometimes South Africa, sometimes other countries in Europe / Africa Device: Windows Laptop; Kindle Keyboard; Hudl2 (Android), iPhone	Help with regex for adding in a hyphen Hi all! I haven't used regex in some years, so I wondered if someone could possibly help with a simple expression? I'd be grateful if so, but no problem if not. I would like to add in some punctuation - either a colon and space, or a space hyphen space, after the first word in the title. Then I want to do the same thing for other books but after the second word. I don't need to bring in anything from any other field, and I don't have any existing punctuation in any of the titles. I will select the books manually as to whether it's after the first / second words. Thanks for any assistance.

08-06-2020, 08:48 AM	#2
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,905 Karma: 47303824 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	The search for the first one would be: Code: (\w+)(.) The second would be: Code: (\w+ \w+)(.) With replacement: Code: \1 - \2 With whatever punctuation you want in there. The above assumes the first word doesn't have a hyphen or apostrophe or some non-letter/number character.

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08-06-2020, 09:11 AM	#3
africalass Connoisseur Posts: 54 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Various - sometimes UK, sometimes South Africa, sometimes other countries in Europe / Africa Device: Windows Laptop; Kindle Keyboard; Hudl2 (Android), iPhone	Thanks so very much for your time. I'll have a go now 👍