How to have \D ignore newline character?

[Tim A]

Simple task to strip out all non-digits in telephone numbers. \D works but also matches newline at the end of every line. Is there a way to 'turn off' the newline match?

I can do a 

Find: [-() ]   which will match the usual possible non-digit characters which I can replace with nothing, but figure I am missing something simple and worth knowing here.

Thanks.

[jj]

Hi Tim,

Try using a negative character class like [^\d\n\r] instead of \D.

HTH

Jean Jourdain

[Tim A]

Try using a negative character class like [^\d\n\r] 

That will do it! .. and as an extra benefit catches any periods used as a delimiter as well.

Deepening the challenge, the phone numbers are actually in the second of three columns separated by tabs. If I can get the phone numbers stripped I can then impose a uniform format on them. But how do I focus the find/replace on just this second column? I can do this in many small steps, but figure there must be an elegant way to do it in a single step.

Before...

Name1        1234567890        Single Lifetime
Name2        123-4567890        Joint Lifetime
Name3        123-456-7890        Joint Lifetime
Name4        (123)4567890        Single
Name5        (123) 4567890        Single
Name6        (123)-4567890        Single
Name7        (123)456-7890        Joint
Name8        123.456.7890        Joint

After...
Name1        1234567890        SingleLifetime
Name2        1234567890        JointLifetime
Name3        1234567890        JointLifetime
Name4        1234567890        Single
Name5        1234567890        Single
Name6        1234567890        Single
Name7        1234567890        Joint
Name8        1234567890        Joint

[ThePorgie]

Pulling your text and replacing the spaces in the tab areas and then Running the following

(?:[- (\.\d]+)?(\d{3})(?:[- )\.]+)?(\d{3})(?:[- )\.]+)?(\d{4})

with a replacement of

\1-\2-\3

yields the following

Name1        123-456-7890        Single Lifetime
Name2        123-456-7890        Joint Lifetime
Name3        123-456-7890        Joint Lifetime
Name4        123-456-7890        Single
Name5        123-456-7890        Single
Name6        123-456-7890        Single
Name7        123-456-7890        Joint
Name8        123-456-7890        Joint

Is that what your looking for?

[ThePorgie]

"...replacing the spaces in the tab areas..." Should of added "to simulate the text you describe."

[Tim A]

On Monday, December 13, 2021 at 6:36:13 AM UTC-8 ThePorgie wrote:

Pulling your text and replacing the spaces in the tab areas and then Running the following

(?:[- (\.\d]+)?(\d{3})(?:[- )\.]+)?(\d{3})(?:[- )\.]+)?(\d{4})

with a replacement of

\1-\2-\3              Is that what your looking for?

 

Ah, a non capture of a possible crud character then capturing the three numeric groups.

Finally hyphenating the result.

Thanks.

[Christopher Stone]

On Dec 12, 2021, at 23:38, Tim A <timaa...@gmail.com> wrote:

Deepening the challenge, the phone numbers are actually in the second of three columns separated by tabs. If I can get the phone numbers stripped I can then impose a uniform format on them.

---

Hey Tim,

Find:

[(]?(\d{3})\D*(\d{3})\D*(\d{4})

Replace:

\1-\2-\3

--

Best Regards,

Chris

[ThePorgie]

Much prettier & easier to read sir....Well played.

[Tim A]

Learning that regular expressions is often about focussing on key trees in the forest.

This is a great way to learn. Thanks all.