Search/Replace Question

[DMSmillie]

*nods* - my post not intended as any comment on yours, Perkin - when I started typing, your post wasn't there - I got interrupted and came back, finished my post, then when I posted it, yours was already there.

[crutledge]

Originally Posted by Perkin

@DMSmillie, the site I linked to was also done by the same team who done EditPadPro, RegexBuddy (and others)

I love the JGSoft tools and have been using them for many years, mostly in other programming. I use EditPadPro, RegexBuddy (aka Regex For Dummies) and PowerGREP. Like the lady says, not free but worth the low costs charged).

If Sigil used them we'd have the most powerful eBook editor known to mankind.

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by Jabby

Can anybody point me to a book or tutorial that uses specific examples to explain Regex? I have found quite a few tutorials that do this for the search function, but none for the the replace string.

Thanks and regards - John

P.S. Long, long ago, in a place far away, I wrote, as we called them then, a "string processor" for the PDP-8. I do understand the concept - its the syntax that befuddles me.

Hi, Jabby, and welcome!

If you go back to PDP-8's, you go back as far as I do! You can google "man perlre" and find the man pages for the PERL dialect of regex, which IMHO gives a fairly concise yet readable description. (The PERL dialect seems to come closest to what's used in Sigil.)

[Perkin]

Originally Posted by DMSmillie

*nods* - my post not intended as any comment on yours, Perkin - when I started typing, your post wasn't there - I got interrupted and came back, finished my post, then when I posted it, yours was already there.

I realised that, just pointing out that the site was also from the JGsoft team.

[Jabby]

My thanks to all who pitched in to help.

I think I understand the answers to my question. I still need to think about where the "\2" fits in (I understand, not in this case).

I've bookmarked the tutorial sites and will study these and then probably buy RegexBuddy;

Again thanks. Regards - John

P.S. The ranks of those who have worked with the PDP-8 are starting to thin. I haven't fiddled with one for almost fifty years. Ye gods! That makes me feel old.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Jabby

My thanks to all who pitched in to help.

I think I understand the answers to my question. I still need to think about where the "\2" fits in (I understand, not in this case).

I've bookmarked the tutorial sites and will study these and then probably buy RegexBuddy;

Again thanks. Regards - John

P.S. The ranks of those who have worked with the PDP-8 are starting to thin. I haven't fiddled with one for almost fifty years. Ye gods! That makes me feel old.

Lastname, Firstname -> Firstname Lastname

Search: (\w+), (\w+)
Replace: \2 \1


toggle toggle Deposit

[Jabby]

Originally Posted by theducks

Lastname, Firstname -> Firstname Lastname

Search: (\w+), (\w+)
Replace: \2 \1


toggle toggle Deposit

Bingo; and thanks - John

[Faster]

Interesting discussion.
Why use .* instead of .+
Answer: because * looks for zero or more whilst + looks for one or more. If two underlines occurred next to each other they would not be found. Could that occur? Yes, because the italicized word was deleted at some stage but not the tags.

It is worth noting that MS Word has an option to change the underline bracketed text to italic. Go to Format - AutoFormat - Options, or go to Tools - AutoCorrect Options - AutoFormat As You Type. It also deals with *words here* changed to bold.

Concerning back referencing, you can also use a back reference in the Find box:

_(.*)_

could be written as:

(_)(.*)\1

and the Replace expression would be:

\2

As for flavours of Regex - couldn't agree more about the confusion it causes. The worst aspect to me is the limitations as to what can be used in the Replace box.