The Power of Regular Expression: use in notepad++

A look at the power of Regular Expressions for the layman Use in Notepad++ Anjesh Tuladhar http://anjesh.blogspot.com http://just-tech.blogspot.com

Alert
Don’t expect to master regular expressions (regex) in this short presentation.
This shows how you can exploit regex to make your work a breeze
It takes a lot of time and hard work to learn regex
You don’t have to be a programmer to master regular expressions, though being a programmer is definitely a plus point

Remove numbers from the list of 1000 rows of names

Choose “Replace” from “Search” menu

You will get a replace dialog box.

Type [0-9]* (.*) in find what box, 1 in replace with box. Note: There’s a space between [0-9]* and (.*).

Check Regular Expression checkbox to exploit regex functionality.

Hurray! Done.

A short explanation
[0-9]* will match numbers only
In our case it matches numbers only
.* will match any characters, including numbers till the end of the line
Use of the curve brackets will act as a memory
Enclosing .* with brackets like (.*) will allow to access it using 1 (see in the replace box)
The space between [0-9]* and (.*) represents the actual space between numbers and the names in the list

Now you have to swap numbers and names, but separated by comma.

Type ( [0-9]*) (.*) in find what box, 2,1 in replace with box.

Replaced!

A short explanation
See previous explanation for [0-9]* and (.*)
Now enclosing [0-9]* with curve brackets will allow to access it
First curve bracket can be accessed using 1 and second can be accessed using 2
Hence we are swapping the position of names and numbers

Now you have to remove numbers, put last-name first, followed by first-name, and separated by comma.

Type ( [0-9]*) ([^ ]*) (.*) in find what box, 3,2 in replace with box.

Replaced!

A short explanation
[0-9]* will match numbers only
[^ ]* will match anything from the current position till it finds space, which in our case will match the first-names only
.* will match any character from the current position till the end of the line
Now [0-9]* is accessed using 1, [^ ]* is accessed using 2 and .* is access using 3, since all of those expressions are enclosed with curve brackets

The beginning
Make today
a noble beginning
with The Regular Expressions

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The Power of Regular Expression: use in notepad++

by Anjesh Tuladhar on Jan 30, 2007

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The Power of Regular Expression: use in notepad++ — Presentation Transcript