TextPad regexp only allows nine back references

[APC]

I have been trying to use RegExp to extract a simpler line of code out of a more complicated one.

Using the RegExp Coach to test my pattern matching this line successfully formats my code using the second, fourteenth, seventeeth and fifth groups match.

Code: Select all

ERROR.LOG(\2, \14, \17, \5);

which should do something like this:

Code: Select all

ERROR.LOG('APC', 'MAIN', 'Some Text', 'E');

However, when I copied the pattern into the TextPad replace field I got this:

Code: Select all

ERROR.LOG('APC',  4,  7, 'E');

In other words it treating the second and third elements as back reference \1 plus a literal (as it happens, \1 was spaces).

So, does TextPad have this limit on the number of back references or is there some workaround?

Cheers, APC

[Drxenos]

Why do you need more than nine? You are only referencing four in your example. Can you rewrite your expression without all the extra paratheses?

[MudGuard]

You did not show the Regex you use and you did not show what you want to match.
Thus it is impossible to tell you whether there might be a workaround for the limit of 9 tagged expressions in Textpad.

[APC]

Why do you need more than nine? You are only referencing four in your example.

Because the source string contains lots of parameters, and I only wanted a subset of them.

Can you rewrite your expression without all the extra paratheses?

Yes but it took more than one pass to pick up everything.

Thanks anyway.

Cheers, APC

[MudGuard]

Because the source string contains lots of parameters, and I only wanted a subset of them.

But for the other parameters, do you need () for other reasons than back-referencing?
If not, remove them.

[Drxenos]

Because the source string contains lots of parameters, and I only wanted a subset of them.

I sorry, but I don't understand the correlation between "a lot of parameters" and the need for many paranthetical expressions.

[charles]

More expressions to match than nine in one run I presume.
For comma/tab delimited files, I found the same problem, i.e. nine matches being insufficient ...