Find and Replace items which do NOT contain a simple pattern...

[Andy Nickless]

Something that I've been unable to find out is how to skip searching something which already contains a simple pattern:

For instance, to find a number consisting 1-3 digits I use (\d{1,3}) - but how can I AVOID a number of up to 3 digits?

Thanks in advance -

Andy

[Kaveh Bazargan]

can you give examples of strings you want to match and strings you don't want to match?

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Kaveh Bazargan PhD

Director

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Accelerating the Communication of Research

  

[Fletcher Sandbeck]

\d{1,3} matches a sequence of 1 to 3 digits so it will match 1, 12, or 123. 

If you specify a single number in the braces then it will match only that number of digits. \d{3} will match 123, 231, etc.

If you want to match all numbers longer than three digits you can use \d{3,}. This will match 123, 1234, 12345, etc.

Note that \d{3} will still match the start of 1234. You can add word boundaries \b\d{3}\b to correct for this.

[fletcher]

[Andy Nickless]

Yes, of course, Kaveh - thanks for your speedy reply - again!

I got this the other day (you helped with it) to find a line of text (or text and numbers) which end with a colon and a space -

<p>(.+?)\:

It's brilliant, but there are occasions when I want to avoid a pattern such as <strong>123</strong>. The number varies, (from 1 to 999) and there may be other numbers, but I want to include those. In other words, avoid lines with numbers within the <strong></strong> tags.

At other times, I want to avoid a certain word (or html).

I hope that makes sense!

Andy

[Kaveh Bazargan]

Sorry, still not clear for me. Does Fletcher's answer work?

Are you saying there are specific numbers you do not want to match, say

<strong>135</strong>

but ones that you do want to match, say

<strong>137</strong>

?

Otherwise can you explain further?

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/1adbf484-f522-457c-ae49-6558ec336b19n%40googlegroups.com.

[Andy Nickless]

No Kaveh - Unfortunately Fletcher's reply doesn't help.

I'll try to clarify.

In this case, I want to make bold parts of some lines of text which begin with <p> up to where the bold part will end at a colon (:) Any text after the colon won't be bold.

<p>All this text will be bold, as until the first colon: The text after the colon will be normal.</p>

<p><strong>123</strong>Any lines which begin as this one does, will not be changed.</p>

(The number being any combination of 1-3 digits).

I hope that's more clear. Apologies for the lack of clarity.

Andy

[Christopher Stone]

On May 14, 2023, at 11:29, 'Andy Nickless' via BBEdit Talk <bbe...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Something that I've been unable to find out is how to skip searching something which already contains a simple pattern:

For instance, to find a number consisting 1-3 digits I use (\d{1,3}) - but how can I AVOID a number of up to 3 digits?

---

Hey Andy,

It's really necessary to provide proper examples when asking for help with regular expressions...

One needs to be able to visualize and test with real-world data to be able to untangle this sort of problem properly.

I can't think of a way using only regex to avoid all of the possible pitfalls – this example using a negative-lookahead will match only the lines in the middle block.

---

__PATTERN__

<strong>(?>(?:(?!</strong>|\d{1,3}).)*)</strong>

___TEST DATA___

<strong>1</strong>

<strong>10</strong>

<strong>100</strong>

<strong>2000</strong>

<strong>20000</strong>

<strong>Thank you India</strong>

<strong>Thank you terror</strong>

<strong>Thank you disillusionment</strong>

<strong>Thank you frailty 1</strong>

<strong>Thank you consequence 22</strong>

<strong>Thank you thank you silence 33</strong>

---

The only way I can think of to manage this puzzle in a bombproof way is to script it, and I'd probably use Perl for that.

--

Take Care,

Chris

[Jim Straus]

Someone might have something better, but I think you could use the up to a colon match, and replace with <strong>\1</strong>. This might double strong your numbers.  Then search for <strong><strong>(.*?)</strong></strong> and replace with <strong>\1</strong> to get rid of the duplicate holding.  It’s a two step processes.

-Jim Straus

On May 14, 2023, at 5:05 PM, 'Andy Nickless' via BBEdit Talk <bbe...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

No Kaveh - Unfortunately Fletcher's reply doesn't help.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/e8c65a54-7efb-44e5-9bbd-06d306f7aa8en%40googlegroups.com.

[Rick Gordon]

Some discussion here
<https://ruby-talk.ruby-lang.narkive.com/dKpNQUAf/inverting-a-regular-expression>
or googling <https://www.google.com/search?q=regex+invert>. But it
involves some coding outside BBEdit.

Rick Gordon

-------
On May 14, 2023 at 6:37:10 PM [-0700], 'Andy Nickless' Via Bbedit Talk
wrote in an email entitled "Find and Replace items which do NOT contain
a simple pattern...":

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[Kaveh Bazargan]

Ah, so no digit dependency at all, right? Does this work:

Search: <p>(.+?):(.+)</p>

replace: <p><strong>\1</strong>:\2</p>

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[Andy Nickless]

My grateful thanks to those who have patiently tried to help, but I think we're over-complicating it.

(My apologies once more).

It occurred to me just now that what I'm looking for, is lines of text and digits (but not html) between <p> and the colon:

Searching for <p>(\w+): works well if there are no digits - so how can I include text like 22nd, 1st, or even a number on its own (1234 for example?).

I try to make my posts clear, but equally, I don't want to bore people with excess detail.

[Kaveh Bazargan]

Hi Andy

I suggest you give several examples of what should be picked up and made bold, and several of what should not be. Still not clear for me. ;-)

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/6c97dff0-bc37-4ddf-a5db-fe7c1ca23484n%40googlegroups.com.

[Andy Nickless]

Thanks Kaveh,

Look at this another way...

I want to search within <p> and the colon:

If I use .+? it picks up everything, including stuff I don't want.

Using <p>(\w+): works brilliantly as long as there are no numbers or digits in the line of text - but I want to include these.

So how can I search for words or numbers etc  but no left or right arrows in the result such as < or >?

(I WOULD also like to include punctuation, such as exclamation and question marks, brackets, etc, - if I can).
Thanks - Andy

[Kaveh Bazargan]

Try this one. It matches any characters before colon, but not <>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/a5ba32c6-41ed-473a-bde1-ed430e31b332n%40googlegroups.com.

[Andy Nickless]

Thank you once again, Kaveh - that works perfectly!

Best wishes,

Andy

[Bruce Van Allen]

> On May 15, 2023, at 3:13 AM, 'Andy Nickless' via BBEdit Talk <bbe...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> Thank you once again, Kaveh - that works perfectly!
> Best wishes,

Yay!

For future reference, the best way to get help is NOT to try diagnosing the problem into abstractions, but rather to provide a few before and after examples of the specific text you're dealing with, plus any comments needed to clarify your goal for the transformation.

Also, don’t worry abut boring us - the people here who like to answer questions do it because we enjoy puzzle-solving and exercising BBEdit’s capabilities.

— Bruce

_bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz_ca_

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> Kaveh Bazargan PhD
> Director
> River Valley Technologies ● Twitter ● LinkedIn ● ORCID ● @kave...@mastodon.social
> Accelerating the Communication of Research
>
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> Kaveh Bazargan PhD
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> Accelerating the Communication of Research
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> Accelerating the Communication of Research
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> Director
> River Valley Technologies ● Twitter ● LinkedIn ● ORCID ● @kave...@mastodon.social
> Accelerating the Communication of Research
>
>

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[Kaveh Bazargan]

+1 Bruce!

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/C88415B1-BCC4-416F-BBE6-ED2A8996B73F%40cruzio.com.

--

Kaveh Bazargan PhD

Director

River Valley Technologies ● Twitter ● LinkedIn ● ORCID ● @kave...@mastodon.social

Accelerating the Communication of Research