Select numbers greater/less than?

uwskier25 · Post by **uwskier25** » Mon Oct 08, 2012 5:42 pm

This has to be simple, yet I can't find an answer anywhere. How do I find numbers greater than a given value? I can't simply search for >200, for example.

Thanks!

ben_josephs · Post by **ben_josephs** » Mon Oct 08, 2012 8:57 pm

It isn't simple. Regular expressions can't count: all they know about is uninterpreted characters. But you can do this with a certain amount of effort. For the specific example you give, try
\<(20[1-9]|2[1-9][0-9]|[3-9][0-9]{2}|[0-9]{4,})\>

This assumes you are using "Posix" regular expression syntax:

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uwskier25 · Post by **uwskier25** » Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:02 pm

Ack! I can't even make sense of that. :) Seems like it should be a simple request.

Thanks, though. Your example is helpful.

ak47wong · Post by **ak47wong** » Tue Oct 09, 2012 12:24 am

To expand on ben_joseph's answer, it may help to understand how the expression is put together:

20[1-9] matches 201 to 209 (20 followed by 1-9).

2[1-9][0-9] matches 210 to 299 (2 followed by 1-9, followed by 0-9).

[3-9][0-9]{2} matches 300 to 999 (3-9 followed by two occurrences of 0-9).

[0-9]{4,} matches 1000 and higher (4 or more occurrences of 0-9).

| means "or", ( and ) group the expression together, and \< and \> anchor the expression to the start and end of a word.

You can extrapolate this to construct an expression for other numbers.

kengrubb · Post by **kengrubb** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 8:13 am

[0-9]{4,} also matches 0000

[1-9][0-9]{3,} matches 1000 or more

ben_josephs · Post by **ben_josephs** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 8:27 am

Quite right. But leading zeros usually don't have to be dealt with. If they do, use this instead of my previous suggestion:
\<0*(20[1-9]|2[1-9][0-9]|[3-9][0-9]{2}|[1-9][0-9]{3,})\>

Edit: corrected typo.

kengrubb · Post by **kengrubb** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 4:13 am

I'm a Cobolasaurus. I dream in leading zeroes.

ben_josephs · Post by **ben_josephs** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 7:02 am

Didn't they die out...?

kengrubb · Post by **kengrubb** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 7:42 am

Not yet. Most are still admiring the bright light in the sky.

1ND1G0 · Post by **1ND1G0** » Wed Jan 15, 2014 3:49 am

ben_josephs' solutions work fine EXCEPT when the numbers fall at the end of a line.
\< and \> anchor the expression to the start and end of a word but this FAILS at the end of a line.

Hence we need the following:

\<0*(20[1-9]|2[1-9][0-9]|[3-9][0-9]{2}|[1-9][0-9]{3,})($|\>)

to accommodate this possibility!

ben_josephs · Post by **ben_josephs** » Wed Jan 15, 2014 7:40 am

\< and \> and the regex I suggested that contains them work as expected on my machine, including in the case where the number is at the end of a line, in both versions 6.1 and 7.1.0 of TextPad.
And \b works as expected in version 7.1.0.

1ND1G0 · Post by **1ND1G0** » Wed Jan 15, 2014 8:37 am

You are right.
My mistake was that when I copied your RegEx I picked up a trailing 'space' character which caused the malfunction.

It seems to be a quirk of the Forum that it allows you to pick up a 'space', that shouldn't actually be there, when you copy a line!
Thanks for your quick response!

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Select numbers greater/less than?

Select numbers greater/less than?

Solution updated for Numbers falling at the end of a line!