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Hi,

I'm not very good at this sort of thing and wondered if anyone could help me?

I am trying to do a find and replace on a string of data similar to the one below.

STX=ANA:1+BBB1:FREE TEXT+BBB1:17+120907:220025+MTAD005854 001+

In the string, the + sign is effectively a delimiter. So what I would like to find and replace is the data only between the 4th and the 5th + sign - in this case `MTAD005854 001`

The problem I have is that the only fixed information I have is that the lines I want to change will always begin STX= and the data to be changed is between the 4th & 5th + sign.

The rest of the information is different on each line and I need this to remain unchanged. Additionally, I would like to replace the located section with a 6 digit numerical string incremented by 1 each time.

Is this even possible or am I trying to do too much?

Thanks

Steve

It's possible, but a bit tedious. First, enable POSIX regular expression syntax in Configure > Preferences > Editor.

The easy part is replacing the data between the 4th and 5th plus sign with an incrementing number:

Find what: (STX=[^+]+\+[^+]+\+[^+]+\+[^+]+\+)[^+]+
Replace with: \1\i

Select Regular expression.
Click Replace All.

The problem is that the numbers aren't 6 digits in length, so you'll have to pad them with zeros in five separate steps:

Find what: (STX=[^+]+\+[^+]+\+[^+]+\+[^+]+\+)([0-9]{5}\+)
Replace with: \10\2

Find what: (STX=[^+]+\+[^+]+\+[^+]+\+[^+]+\+)([0-9]{4}\+)
Replace with: \100\2

Find what: (STX=[^+]+\+[^+]+\+[^+]+\+[^+]+\+)([0-9]{3}\+)
Replace with: \1000\2

Find what: (STX=[^+]+\+[^+]+\+[^+]+\+[^+]+\+)([0-9]{2}\+)
Replace with: \10000\2

Find what: (STX=[^+]+\+[^+]+\+[^+]+\+[^+]+\+)([0-9]\+)
Replace with: \100000\2

It's less tedious if you start the incrementing numbers at 1000001:

Find what: ^(STX=([^+]+\+){4})[^+]+
Replace with: \1\i(1000001)

[X] Regular expression

Replace All

You then just need to remove the leading 1.

In the search expression ^ anchors each match to the beginning of a line, and {4} indicates that the preceding expression matches 4 times.

Thanks Guys - I'm really grateful you took the time to help as you have definately solved my problem.

However, I have an inquisitive mind and I wanted to ask a question. In the replace string, how does it know where in the original text to replace the number? As far as I can see, the '1' seems to point to it - is there some sort of anchor in the find above that indicates where to put it?

I appreciate you are probably busy people so if you don't have time to respond I will simply go away happy that you solved my problem and try and look it up myself (Google is my friend)...

Thanks again!

repeater wrote:In the replace string, how does it know where in the original text to replace the number? As far as I can see, the '1' seems to point to it - is there some sort of anchor in the find above that indicates where to put it?

The parentheses in the search string denote a tagged expression. The numbered back-references (\1 and so on) refer to the contents of the tagged expressions from left to right. So, in the expression:

Find what: ^(STX=([^+]+\+){4})[^+]+

The back-reference \1 matches the part of the expression in red:

Find what: ^(STX=([^+]+\+){4})[^+]+

Have a look in the help under How To > Find and Replace Text > Use Regular Expressions and How To > Reference Information > Regular Expressions. Or read more here.

I think I'm with you. I've got some reading to do...!

Cheers for the help.

Steve

It would have been my pleasure to respond to someone with such good manners. But ak47wong got in there first.

I suppose, then, the pleasure is all mine