Mostly Clueless Please Help With Regex/Find/Replace in Notepad++ | Smarter Dev | Page 1

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:11 AM

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So I wasnt sure what tag applies to this and will just put Windows sorry.

In short I use notepad++ to mess around moding game files. Iv just recently learned a LITTLE about Regex, 'regular expressions' and the ToolBucket Multiline Find and Replace Plugin.
Id like to be able to search for two or more separate criteria at once I know this can be done with ( )? and another ( )?, however I do not understand how to properly replace the first group with ONLY 'x' and the second group with ONLY 'y' and NOT have both groups get replaced with 'x'&'y'.

Reminder I have basically no clue about coding.

Ill give an example via text and in my images:
Testing and learning file

Stuff
Thingo1
thingy2
#END
So how would I search for 'Thingo1' to replace it with 'Random1' at the same time searching for 'thingy2' and replacing it with 'random2' without having 'Thingo1' be replaced with both 'Random1random2'?

I know I could just search 1 at a time however Im almost certain this should be possible and would speed up my process.

median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:31 AM

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Regex only finds matches, it doesn't have any kind of logic built into it to be able to say "if X do Y, if A do B." So what you want to do isn't actually possible.

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:39 AM

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😦 really?

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oh

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but what about the \1\2 type stuff?

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I thought the solution had something to do with those \ thingies

median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:41 AM

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That's for inserting groups from the match into the replacement.

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:41 AM

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isnt that what I want?

median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:41 AM

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There's no if this then that logic to it

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:41 AM

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I dont know how to use \

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oh 😦 so I cant have \1 only replace the first group and \2 only replace the second group? D:

median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:42 AM

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Nah, (hello)(world) \1 would be "hello" and \2 would be "world", there's no way to say "\1 is hello insert foo"

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:43 AM

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Depression 😦

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what to do then? just Find things 1 at a time if I only want 'x' replaced with 'y' I cant do multiple searches and replaces at the same time with notepad++ uh

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I was beginning to get so happy with my knowledge slowly coming along, beginning to think anything was possible felt godly then this brick wall

median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:45 AM

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Ok, well you might be able to do that in a round about way.

(thing1)?(.*?)(thing2)?

And then you could do replacement1 \2 replacement2. Essentially you match what's between the words you're looking for and re-insert that between what you want the words replaced with.

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You'd actually probably need to get rid of the first and last ? just because otherwise it will likely not work at all since stuff is ambiguous.

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:46 AM

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^ Im getting baby headed reading and trying to understand this 😦

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is why Iv gone so long in my 23 years without learning 2 code makes me really aware of my idiocy

median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:47 AM

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Regex is an entirely different beast.

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:47 AM

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let me try and replicate what youve outlined in NP++ step by step

median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:47 AM

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It's very terse and hard to grok what it's doing

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:47 AM

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to confirm if Im warm or cold

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so heres my demo file right

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and I want to replace 'Thingo1' with 'Replacement1' and 'thingy2' with 'replacement2'

median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:49 AM

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It'll only work if you want to replace them together.

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:49 AM

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so Id bring up the multiline find/replace

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median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:49 AM

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So every time there's a Thingo1 followed by a Thingo2

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:49 AM

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oh

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well Im gonna try what you put above in the find

median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:50 AM

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You can't change the replace field based on what you matched, you can only insert matches into it

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:51 AM

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ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

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so like let me rephrase to confirm I get it

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so like Find can take many different orders and Replace can ONLY give 1 universalized result that will be the same exact result for each order?

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if so thats a BUMMER

median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:52 AM

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Yeah.

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Pretty much.

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:52 AM

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okay well in any case I thank you very much oh wise one for saving me much frustration figuring out things are impossible on my own is 1000x the grief

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❤️

median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:53 AM

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👍 Sorry I couldn't give you better news haha

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If you wanted to do stuff like that you could write a simple program using something like Python or JavaScript

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:54 AM

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median haven If you wanted to do stuff like that you could write a simple program using somet...

thats where I draw a line for now 😄

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Iv been informed of such 'simplicity' and ease of use do it your self program tool production things before and that is a bit more than Id like to chew at present

median haven Mar 14, 2023, 1:55 AM

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Understandable

golden nymph Mar 14, 2023, 1:55 AM

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when I feel ready, humble and able Ill come back here to you gang for helpers

#Mostly Clueless Please Help With Regex/Find/Replace in Notepad++