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How can I replace a typed character (^) with an actual hard carriage return?

Regards,
Chuck Billow

Hello Chuck, try this:

Search for: \^
Replace with: \n

Checkmark for Regular Expression, using POSIX syntax

Bob Hansen wrote:Hello Chuck, try this:

Search for: \^
Replace with: \n

Checkmark for Regular Expression, using POSIX syntax

Bob:

Worked *exactly* as desired.... But I'm unclear as to the "using POSIX syntax" as I didn't see any choice of that in the query box.

Regards,
Chuck Billow

It's hidden under configuration settings:

Configure | Preferences | Editor

[X] Use POSIX regular expression syntax

In fact, it doesn't make any difference with this particular regular expression (\^), as it doesn't use any of:
( ) { } |

Look in TextPad's help, under How To... | Find and Replace Text | Use Regular Expressions. Posix syntax often leads to more readable regular expressions.

thanks...



Chuck

I thought this is what I needed as well, but it's not working the way I expected it.

I have a file someone gave me (uncooperative someone) and it's record length is 1MB. It's full of sql insert statements, but not in the format that I need in order to process in my db.

I used textpad to format the lines into the statements I need, however, I need to do a global replacement of a character - ; with a ;<nl> in order to break these huge lines into multiple lines.

Basically I need to have the program do the equivalent of me hitting the RETURN key right after each ; encountered.

I must be missing something on the file format or encoding when I save this file after attempting to replace ; with ;\n .

Any help is appreciated.

You haven't told us in what way this appears not to be working.

Did you select Regular expression in the Replace dialogue box?

That would be why - b/c I didnt read thoroughly enough

It's working now that I checked Regular Expression, thank you.