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hi,

If i have a txt document that looks like :-

-|(XP8750)|-random string
-|(XP8751)|-random string
-|(XP8766)|-random string
-|(XP8767)|-random string
-|(XP8771)|-random string
how can i remove every -|(XP8750)|- so i'm just left with random strings?
TIA

Regex Q's like this serve as crossword puzzles for me ...

Find:::: ^-|(XP[0-9]\{4\})|-
Replace: (leave field empty)

Across 36,

Roy

Roy,
Where did you learn the methodology you used above?

I like crosswords too but must be speaking the wrong language with replace.

What is ^? And [0-9] ? \(4\) ?


Thanks,
RON C

i tried,
Find:::: ^-|(XP[0-9]\{4\})|-
Replace: (leave field empty)

and got a
cannont find literal string '^-|(XP[0-9]\{4\})|-\n' error

now i'm confused

I like regular expressions too!

In the "Find and Replace" dialog turn on the "regular expression" checkbox. Then it should word because TextPad does not search the literal string "^-|(XP[0-9]\{4\})|-" which is indeed not in the textfile but the regular expression that means this:

^ matches the beginning of a line
-|(XP matches these characters (no special meaning)
[0-9] matches one digit (from 0 to 9)
\{4\} matches the last expression (the one digit!) exactly 4 times
)|- matches these characters

More of this you can find in the Online-Help. This works only when you haven't selected POSIX-regular expressions in the settings. But this is the default anyway.

Steve: It is not a literal string. In the Find / Replace / Find-in-files dialogs there is a Regular Expression checkbox. Put a checkmark in it and try it again.

Ron:

"^" at the beginning of a string anchors the expression to the beginning of a text line, that is, it looks for the pattern following the ^ to start at the top of the file or just after a newline character.

Re: \{4\}, (curly braces) note that you asked me about \(4\) (parentheses), which is (are?) very, very different. Here is the explanation for "\{count\}" from TextPad's help topic, "How to Use Regular Expressions" : Matches the specified number of the preceding characters or expressions. Example: ho\{2\}p matches hoop, but not hop.

Regarding "[...]", I quote again from the same help topic: Any one of the characters in the brackets, or any of a range of characters separated by a hyphen (-), or a character class operator (see below). Examples: h[aeiou][a-z] matches hat, hip, hit, hop, and hut; [A-Za-z] matches any single letter; x[0-9] matches x0, x1, …, x9.

Since I wanted to match any digit, I used [0-9] withhout the x prefix (indicating a match on hex values). I could have used [0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9] or [[:digit:]]\{4\} but [0-9]\{4\} was the shortest alternative.

"Where did you learn the methodology you used above?"<br>
In 1996 or so, about *two years* after I got my TextPad license, I recall reading one person helping another with a find/replace operation similar to something I needed. I do not recall whether that exchange took place on Usenet, a Perl site, or an earlier manifestation of this forum (compuserve?). I took regex seriously from that point on. I can safely say that every hour I studied regex has saved me at least ten.

I recommend three sources to help you learn about regular expressions: <br>
1. The TextPad Help file (search on "regular"). <br>
2. A Regex FAQ maintained by that TextPad illuminary and all-round great fellow, Jeff Epstein: <br>
http://jeffyjeffy.com/textpad/documenta ... aq.html<br>
3. When you *really* get hooked, get hold of the O'Reilly book, Mastering_Regular_Expressions by Jeffry Friedl.

The only down-side to my addiction to regex has been to ignore some unrelated and very useful TextPad functionality. For example, a few months ago someone asked if TextPad could insert a column of line numbers with leading zeroes. I immediately turned to discovering a regex solution. Someone else pointed out TextPad's Edit > Fill Block function which is specifically designed for that purpose.

Well, enough of this unabashed geekiness.

Good luck,
Roy

Ah, someone else stepped in during my morning interruptions. Nice to see yet another "regular" guy!

Roy

thanks for the replies ppl,
ok.
when i paste ' ^-|(XP[0-9]\{4\})|-\n ' into the find field, ' ^-|(XP[0-9]\{4\})|-\n ' comes up instead (\n). Is this correct?. If so when i replace i get the following error message.
'cannot find regular expression ^-|(XP[0-9]\{4\})|-\n '
If i paste it without the \n it removes all ' - ' from my listso i'm left with
|(XP8750)|random string...what can i be doing wrong?
Thanks again,
Steve

Remove all trailing blanks from the Find expression. In general, if a Find expression does not select as you expected, try removing terms from the right-hand side until the shortened pattern starts matching as you expect it to, then experiment with the later terms to understand what caused the original mismatch.