Editplus is a lot better than the regular text editor, Notepad. From all it’s features I like RegExp Support the most, and than comes the block select feature. Here are the quick lines to carry out regular tasks using regular expression in Editplus. Most steps will also work with other editors supporting regular expressions like Notepad++.
It’s kinda downloadable editplus regular expression cheetsheet list.
How To Remove all empty lines in EditPlus or Notepad++
Find: "^\n" (Ignore double-quotes in all find/replace)
Replace: ""
Where,
^ - Beginning of the line
\n - New Line
How To Remove Multiple Spaces convert into single space in EditPlus or Notepad++
Find: ” +”
Replace: ” “
Where,
How To Find one or more occurance of space character EditPlus
Comment multiple line of code:
Find: "^"
Replace: "#" or "//"
You may optionally use: Edit Menu > Format > Line Comment.
How To Generate Comma Separated List from new line delimited list
Find: "\n"
Replace: ", "
This helps in even joining some of lines of code instead of replacing by comma you may replace it with "".How To Manipulate columns display order / punctuation
Find: "([0-9]+)\t([a-zA-Z]+)"
Replace: "\2\t\1"
Where,
[0-9]+ - Finds one or more digits
[a-zA-Z]+ - Finds one or more characters
() - mark the block or capture the group
\2 - 2nd mark expression
For example original text as follows:
123 abc
345 cde
567 efg
becomes:
abc 123
cde 345
efg 567
The Other Way:
- Press Alt+C - Drag you mouse to select respective column and click - Copy / Cut as required
Append / Add semicolon (any character) at the end of the line
Find: "\n"
Replace: ";\n"Enclose lines by quotes
Find: "\n"
Replace: "'\n'"Delete all lines containing a given STRING
Find: "^.STRING.$"
Replace: ""
How To Remove lines not containing a given STRING
I don’t know how to do this!! 🙂
How To Convert tab separated file into insert statements
TSV: abcd de4 iirn 34399
SQL: INSERT INTO TABLENAME VALUES ("abcd", "de4", "iirn","34399");
Find: "(.)\t(.)\t(.)\t(.)"
Replace: "INSERT INTO TABLENAME VALUES ("\1", "\2", "\3","\4");"
Format the telephone number:
Find: "([0-9][0-9][0-9])([0-9][0-9][0-9])([0-9].*)"
Replace: "\1-\2-\3"
For example:
Original: 1231231231
Formatted text becomes: 123-123-1231How To Remove Brackets
Find: "(|)"
Replace: ""
Where,
( -> Match (. \ is required to escape marking the expression.
| -> or
How To Replace 1st occurrence of character
Find: " (.)" Replace: "-\1" Where, (.) - matches everything and marks the block
** Make sure you ignore double-quotes(") while writing in find / replace boxes.
EditPlus supports following regular expressions in Find, Replace and Find in Files command.
Expression - Description
\t - Tab character.
\n - New line.
. - Matches any character.
| - Either expression on its left and right side matches the target string.
[] - Any of the enclosed characters may match the target character.
[^] - None of the enclosed characters may match the target character.- Character to the left of asterisk in the expression should match 0 or more time.
- Character to the left of plus sign in the expression should match 1 or more times.
? - Character to the left of question mark in the expression should match 0 or 1 time.
^ - Expression to the right of ^ matches only when it is at the beginning of line.
$ - Expression to the left of $ matches only when it is at the end of line.
() - Affects evaluation order of expression and also used for tagged expression.
\ - Escape character. If you want to use character "\" itself, you should use "\".
Notable Features of Editplus are
Spell checking
Regex-based find & replace
Encoding conversion
Newline conversion
Syntax highlighting
Multiple undo/redo
Rectangular block selection
Auto indentation
Code folding (Text folding)Download pdf: Editplus-RegExp.
Conclusion: EditPlus, with its support for regular expressions, offers a versatile platform for efficient text editing and manipulation. By mastering the techniques covered in this article, you can harness the full power of regular expressions in EditPlus to streamline your workflow, automate repetitive tasks, and achieve cleaner and well-formatted text. Take advantage of features like spell checking, encoding conversion, syntax highlighting, and more, as EditPlus empowers you to become a proficient text editor. With regular expressions as your tool, the possibilities are endless in EditPlus. Elevate your text editing game and unlock new levels of productivity with these invaluable tips and tricks.
58 comments
sorry the forum stripped my code
I can’t seem to figure this out.
say I have a data of code in the middle of other random data.
random data random code more random dataHow would I remove all data between and including andThanks for any help.
I can’t seem to figure this out.
say I have a data of code in the middle of other random data.
random data random code more random data
How would I remove all data between and including and
Thanks for any help.
Nice article and I just saw this post ( 3 years old :D), if you still haven’t had a chance to get an answer for this, you can then try with look-ahead process.
Find: ^((?!string).)*$
replace:null
and then do \n\n replace with \n to remove empty lines
Tanks for commenting such an old article Prasenna ! I’m glad most of it still make sense 😉
If you’re trying to answer “Remove lines not containing a given STRING:”, please try that in EditPlus as may be you can get this working in other editors but doesn’t work in EditPlus.
Let me know,
Kedar.
Strange, I tried it in Editplus 4.0 and it works for me.
Remove Lines That does not have “test”:
==========================================
Here I have test
No search text here
this line should be removed as well
Not this line, because it has test
Test here too
1234567890
abcdefghijklmn
Search and replace:
===================
Find What: ^((?!test).)*$
Replace: “” —> null, remove quotes
Result:
=====
Remove Lines That does not have “test”:
Here I have test
Not this line, because it has test
Test here too
Hmm thanks for posting Prasenna, alas this doesn’t work in v3.51.
hi, i have below lines like
acctInfo.setPaymentFlag(rs2.getString(“PAYMENT_FLAG”));
acctInfo.setAccountCode(rs2.getString(“ACCOUNT_CODE”));
acctInfo.setAccountName(rs2.getString(“FIRST_NAME”));
i want to get as mentioned below
PAYMENT_FLAG
ACCOUNT_CODE
FIRST_NAME
kindly help in this
Hi Rama:
Find: .*getString\(\”(.*)\”.*
Replace: \1
Cheers 🙂
Thank you Kedar for this write up and I’ve bookmarked the page! I’m scratching my head on how to do this, and would be very grateful if you knew a way to do this.
I need to remove 2 consecutive underscores when followed by a specific string (“defaultDescription”) and replace with a single space. Also after the same string, need to remove 1 underscore and replace with a single space. This change must only be done after the string.
Example:
changed to
However, this pattern must not follow through everywhere.
Example of line that must not change:
Apologies, my examples were not published for some reason.
Example of the 2 consecutive underscores:
descriptions defaultDescription=”Posting Amount__FY_PY”
should be changed to
descriptions defaultDescription=”Posting Amount FY PY”
Example of line that should not be changed:
measure id=”POSTING_AMT__FY_PY” order=”66″ aggregationType=”sum” measureType=”simple”
Hi Michael,
Apologies for not reverting back earlier. For the problem you shared:
Find: (.*)defaultDescription(.*)\_\_(.*)\_(.*)
Replace: \1defaultDescription\2 \3 \4
You might want to make sure that only quoted strings get replaced then you can have additional:
Find: (.*)defaultDescription(.*)\”(.*)\_\_(.*)\_(.*)\”
Replace: \1defaultDescription\2″\3 \4 \5″
If you cannot guarantee the “_” occurrances etc then it’d be better to do that in two attempts. Replace __ first and then _.
Hope this helps.
Hi how to replace this line using regex
‘Club Ties’
to
Club Ties
how to remove opening and closing quotations using regex mode
Hi Ravi,
Find: ^'(.*)’\n
Replace: \1\n
hello kedar, i got problem with website making. could you help me out if you know.
You can reach-out using the Community chat window or the email mentioned in contact form. BTW I can help if you’re stuck some where!
Hi guys, I need to copy data in matched strings from a file which contains million of records.
ex : 1St record –> a,b,c,d,_bb_vid:CKDGJKJDGDG~~~,e,f,g
2nd record –> b,x,y,z,_bb_vid:KSDLGFMDSLKJGKD~~~,k,l,g
like this i have n no of records in a file. here the field seperator is , i need to copy the date between the matched strings “_bb_vid:” and “~~~” into another file.
please help on this.
Hi Siva,
If you can open this in EditPlus (or any editor allowing regular expressions) then you can:
Search for: “.*_bb_vid(.*)~~~.*
Replace: \1
If you’ve files in Linux:
cat filename | awk -F “_bb_vid” ‘{print $2}’ | awk -F ‘~~~’ ‘{print $1}’ > output_dates_file
Let me know.
Hi ,
I want to add differnt numbers in last of each line i edit plus .Can any one help me to do this.
For Esxample :
I have 2 line in Edit plus:
1. India is my country
2. I love my COuntry
Now i want to put 6 in last of first line and 8 in end of second line.How we will do it in edit plus
Hey Anil,
You cannot replace individual lines with different number from single regex. I’ll still tell you how to put something at the end of the line.
Find: “$”
Replace: “6”
OR
Find: “\n”
Replace: “6\n”
Hope this helps.