Regex examples

[Pavulon]

Good evening, Haudek,

Got it.
Problem solved.
Thanks for everything.

[ElMiko]

Is there a way to match numbers that are between repeated characters?

For example to match the numbers in:

<p class="lorem">.........6.........</p>

<p class="lorem">____8___</p>

<p class="lorem">----------3-------</p>

Something like:

<p.*?>[_-\]*?\K[0-9](?=[_-\]*?</p>)

Except that would match strings like:

<p class="lorem">_._--__8..----</p>

and would fail to match strings like:

<p class="lorem">****8***</p>

when what I'm trying to do is match numbers nested within ANY repeated string of characters.

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by ElMiko

<p class="lorem">.........6.........</p>

I assume you want to capture the number to reuse.

PHP Code:

\.+(\d+)\.+ 


Then change the \. to match whatever other character you want to find.

[ElMiko]

Originally Posted by Karellen

I assume you want to capture the number to reuse.

PHP Code:

\.+(\d+)\.+ 


Then change the \. to match whatever other character you want to find.

One of the things I'm trying to solve for is when I don't know what the repeating character is, only that it is repeating. It could be a period or a hyphen or the letter "a"... literally anything (except a number).

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by ElMiko

when what I'm trying to do is match numbers nested within ANY repeated string of characters.

Oops. Missed this last line. Thought it was part of your signature.

Try...

PHP Code:

>\p{P}+(\d+)\p{P}+< 


[ElMiko]

Originally Posted by Karellen

Oops. Missed this last line. Thought it was part of your signature.

Try...

PHP Code:

>\p{P}+(\d+)\p{P}+< 


So, this is similar to the second problem i ran into my sample regex. Namely, it'll match ANY string (repeated or not) with a nested number. eg:

<p class="lorem">_._--__8..----</p>

I'm trying to only find numbers nested between a repeated character, not numbers nested between any characters.

[Haudek]

Originally Posted by ElMiko

I'm trying to only find numbers nested between a repeated character, not numbers nested between any characters.

I think I understand what you need.

<p[^>]*>.*?(.).*?\d+.*?\1.*?</p>

IMHO, the key is to use \1 in the search to indicate that you need a part that has already appeared before the number.

[ElMiko]

I almost considered apologizing in advance for the convoluted question, but better late than never: sorry, everybody! I realize this is a little tricky to understand

Let's say i have the following <p> elements:

1. <p class="lorem">....1...</p>

2. <p class="lorem">----2---</p>

3. <p class="lorem">___3_____</p>

4. <p class="lorem">_._--__4..----</p>

5. <p class="lorem">aaa5aaaa</p>

I am looking for regex that will match examples 1, 2, 3, and 5, BUT NOT 4.

That is to say, I'm looking to match a <p> element where the number is nested withing any string of repeating characters, and then isolate the number for reuse in a replacement function

@Haudek - I think we're getting close, although i don't think I see any backreference in the first half of the regex...

EDIT1 — SOLVED:

Thanks, Haudek. Your regex got the ball rolling. I'd forgotten that backreferencing works within the search field (not merely in the replace field).

<p[^>]*>(.)\1*?([0-9]+)\1*?</p>

[ElMiko]

I'm trying to insert a character into a string. Specifically, I'm trying to insert omitted apostrophes into contractions. I fear this is impossible with regex since I'm not actually matching anything—I'm matching the non-space between two characters.

The search I've been using is:

(?<=\b[Cc]an|\b[DdWw]on|\b[CcWw]ouldn|\b[Ss]houldn|[Dd]idn|\b[Ii]sn|\b[Aa]ren|\b[WwHh]asn)t\b

which matches the ending "t" that can then be replaced by "’t". But I'm hoping there's a way to write the search such that I'm functionally inserting the apostrophe rather than replacing the "t".

[KevinH]

Why is a replacement for t being 't an issue? It is just a text substring replacement. Replacements can be anything.

Also why not let a spellchecker catch those cases?