@Jason-Quattrini I’m not sure how to do it as a macro but, if you are using regular expression mode your search pattern can be.*pattern.*\R.*\R.*

The first .* is all of the line before your pattern of whatever it is you are searching for. This bypasses the need for you to press the Home key.

The .*\R after your pattern goes from the end of the pattern that matched to the end of that line plus \R for the invisible end-of-line character(s) that are at the end of each line.

The second .*\R picks up all of the second line including the end of line character(s). The third part with .* but no \R picks up all of the third line but not the end-of-line character(s) themselves.

You can then do search-replace using Replace All and it’ll do what you want without needing to use a macro.

@Doğancan, please take a look at the Search / Find in files... menu option in Notepad++ as I believe that will do what you want.

The Find what and Replace with fields are the standard search and replace fields. Filters allows you to search/replace on *.txt files for example. It defaults to blank which is .. Directory is just the directory path of where your files are. Don’t try some path\*.txt as it won’t work… Related to Directory is the In all sub-folders checkbox on the right side. That’s enabled by default. You may want to turn it off.

You then will do [Replace in Files] but you absolutely should make a full backup of your files first as [Replace in Files] will promptly do the search/replace on all of the files you are filtering for and save those files. There are no backups made by this process which is why you should make your own backups.

Something that is safer than the [Replace in Files] button is the [Find All] button that is above it. This will scan your files for the Find what pattern and will create a search-results list. You would still need to then click to open the files one by one to test the search/replace.

Yuck to using $ in such a way in C++ – is that really needed? (purely a rhetorical question since this is not the forum for it).

@PeterJones thanks!

I wrote in Shift+F3 no more works that the problem might be:

the expected result of backward searching with a regular expression is not always well-defined.

Example of how this could be ambiguous:

Given the text:
xabcdefy
and the regular expression:
(a..(d..)?|.e)

when matching normally there is one match — abcdef. When matching backward, is there one match — abcdef — or are there two matches — de and abc?

What about the regular expression:
(a..(d.)?|.f)
matching backward: abcde or ef and abc?

@PeterJones

Yes, I can confirm that this is also the case for me.

@Mark-Olson Ahhhhhhhhh ok. I had no idea what that style column was for. Thanks a bunch.

I agree Terry. Thanks for your thoughtful response and time.

My system environment is well locked down including what/how things can be downloaded/installed. I think option #2 may be best bet. Some noted when replacing text within the shortcut.xml file to allow time for file to save versus save and instantly close out of the shortcut.xml file. Anecdotal and not vetted but may be something within virtual environment.

I consider thread closed unless someone has definitive solution. Thanks again.

@mkupper said in Broken icon for txt files:

That’s excellent news.

I’m so relieved because it was doing my head in 😂

@Brother-Creed said in how to use middle mouse button to select text:

I am aware that we can already do this using alt + shift does this

That’s for keyboard control of column block selection.
With mouse (which you seem to want to use), just hold Alt while you click and drag with left mouse button.

I want to use middle mouse instead as its easier to select and control.

Alt+Lclickdrag is just as “easy”.

i want to know if same thing is supported in notepad++

No.

@guy038 @mkupper Thank you both for the additional information.

Hello, @musocity, @coises and All,

@musocity, I must admit that I shoud have remembered that an HTML link is always defined by a <a> tag, whose the href attribute specifies the link’s destination :-(

But, in your first post, you textually said :

So =POPSONG will link to
httXX://mysongs.com/songs/=POPSONG.mp3

Which is exactly what I did, in my second reply to you !!

Now, if you had posted something like :

I have a lot of <tr> blocks which, each, defines a song’s name, after the <td>/= chars

For instance, I have this INPUT text :

<tr> <td>=POPSONG</td> <td>R</td> <td>4/4</td> <td>ev8</td> <td>140</td> <td>Pop Piano Lite Solo Piano</td> <td>Ballad</td> <td>Pop 20</td> <td>2009/12</td> <td>RT 70</td> <td>2</td> <td>2</td> <td>Piano Ballad,Air,Celtic,Country Ballad,Worship</td> </tr>

and I would like to get this OUTPUT :

<tr> <td><a href="https://mysongs.com/songs/=POPSONG.mp3" title="">=POPSONG</a></td> <td>R</td> <td>4/4</td> <td>ev8</td> <td>140</td> <td>Pop Piano Lite Solo Piano</td> <td>Ballad</td> <td>Pop 20</td> <td>2009/12</td> <td>RT 70</td> <td>2</td> <td>2</td> <td>Piano Ballad,Air,Celtic,Country Ballad,Worship</td> </tr>

I could have given you the exact answer, straight away !

Now, regarding the replacement of some punctuation chars by their %encoded equivalent :

I did not consider the -, ~, _ chars and the . dot if followed with mp3, which are non-reserved chars, as well as word chars

I did not consider, either, the " double-quotes as well as the < and > chars, extensively used in HTML files

Thus, the remaining characters to test are this list :

!#$ %&'()*+,/:;=?@[]^`{|}

Then, I chose this odd name’s song :

!#$ Name%&of'()*+,/:;the=?@[]song^`{|}

Followed by .mp3

I found out a regex S/R which treats all these characters and replace them by their %encoded equivalent, in one go :

- SEARCH (?:/=|>=|(?<!\A)\G)(?:(?s-i)(?!\.mp3|</a>).)*?\K(?:(\x20)|(!)|(#)|(\$)|(%)|(&)|(')|(\()|(\))|(\*)|(\+)|(,)|(/)|(:)|(;)|(=)|(\?)|(@)|([)|(\\)|(])|(\^)|(`)|(\{)|(\|)|(\})|(\.(?!mp3))) - REPLACE (?{1}%20)(?{2}%21)(?{3}%23)(?{4}%24)(?{5}%25)(?{6}%26)(?{7}%27)(?{8}%28)(?{9}%29)(?{10}%2A)(?{11}%2B)(?{12}%2C)(?{13}%2F)(?{14}%3A)(?{15}%3B)(?{16}%3D)(?{17}%3F)(?{18}%40)(?{19}%5B)(?{20}%5C)(?{21}%5D)(?{22}%5E)(?{23}%60)(?{24}%7B)(?{25}%7C)(?{26}%7D)(?{27}%2E)

I took inspiration from this post :

https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/22690/generic-regex-replacing-in-a-specific-zone-of-text

To test this regex :

First, copy the following text in a new tab <tr> <td><a href="https://mysongs.com/songs/=!#$ Name%&of'()*+,/:;the=?@[]song^`{|}.mp3" title="">=!#$ Name%&of'()*+,/:;the=?@[]song^`{|}</a></td> <td>R</td> <td>4/4</td> <td>ev8</td> <td>140</td> <td>Pop Piano Lite Solo Piano</td> <td>Ballad</td> <td>Pop 20</td> <td>2009/12</td> <td>RT 70</td> <td>2</td> <td>2</td> <td>Piano Ballad,Air,Celtic,Country Ballad,Worship</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://mysongs.com/songs/=!#$ Name%&of'()*+,/:;the=?@[]song^`{|}.mp3" title="">=!#$ Name%&of'()*+,/:;the=?@[]song^`{|}</a></td> <td>R</td> <td>4/4</td> <td>ev8</td> <td>140</td> <td>Pop Piano Lite Solo Piano</td> <td>Ballad</td> <td>Pop 20</td> <td>2009/12</td> <td>RT 70</td> <td>2</td> <td>2</td> <td>Piano Ballad,Air,Celtic,Country Ballad,Worship</td> </tr>

Move to the very beginning of the file ( IMPORTANT )

Open the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )

Un-tick all box options

- SEARCH (?:/=|>=|(?<!\A)\G)(?:(?s-i)(?!\.mp3|</a>).)*?\K(?:(\x20)|(!)|(#)|(\$)|(%)|(&)|(')|(\()|(\))|(\*)|(\+)|(,)|(/)|(:)|(;)|(=)|(\?)|(@)|([)|(\\)|(])|(\^)|(`)|(\{)|(\|)|(\})|(\.(?!mp3))) - REPLACE (?{1}%20)(?{2}%21)(?{3}%23)(?{4}%24)(?{5}%25)(?{6}%26)(?{7}%27)(?{8}%28)(?{9}%29)(?{10}%2A)(?{11}%2B)(?{12}%2C)(?{13}%2F)(?{14}%3A)(?{15}%3B)(?{16}%3D)(?{17}%3F)(?{18}%40)(?{19}%5B)(?{20}%5C)(?{21}%5D)(?{22}%5E)(?{23}%60)(?{24}%7B)(?{25}%7C)(?{26}%7D)(?{27}%2E)

Select the Regular expression search mode

Click once, on the Replace All button ( Do not use the Replace button )

Important :

Due to the presence of the \K syntax, in the search regex, you CANNOT use the Replace button and must trigger a global replacement !

If you just want to know the different occurrences, which will be replaced later, simply use the Find Next or Find Previous button ( or F3 / Shift + F3 )

And you should get this OUTPUT :

<tr> <td><a href="https://mysongs.com/songs/=%21%23%24%20Name%25%26of%27%28%29%2A%2B%2C%2F%3A%3Bthe%3D%3F%40%5B%5C%5Dsong%5E%60%7B%7C%7D.mp3" title="">=%21%23%24%20Name%25%26of%27%28%29%2A%2B%2C%2F%3A%3Bthe%3D%3F%40%5B%5C%5Dsong%5E%60%7B%7C%7D</a></td> <td>R</td> <td>4/4</td> <td>ev8</td> <td>140</td> <td>Pop Piano Lite Solo Piano</td> <td>Ballad</td> <td>Pop 20</td> <td>2009/12</td> <td>RT 70</td> <td>2</td> <td>2</td> <td>Piano Ballad,Air,Celtic,Country Ballad,Worship</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://mysongs.com/songs/=%21%23%24%20Name%25%26of%27%28%29%2A%2B%2C%2F%3A%3Bthe%3D%3F%40%5B%5C%5Dsong%5E%60%7B%7C%7D.mp3" title="">=%21%23%24%20Name%25%26of%27%28%29%2A%2B%2C%2F%3A%3Bthe%3D%3F%40%5B%5C%5Dsong%5E%60%7B%7C%7D</a></td> <td>R</td> <td>4/4</td> <td>ev8</td> <td>140</td> <td>Pop Piano Lite Solo Piano</td> <td>Ballad</td> <td>Pop 20</td> <td>2009/12</td> <td>RT 70</td> <td>2</td> <td>2</td> <td>Piano Ballad,Air,Celtic,Country Ballad,Worship</td> </tr>

Final clarification :

Do not run this S/R twice ! Indeed, any % char of the encoded chars would be encoded as %25 again !

Best Regards,

guy038

While we’re here, I’d like to talk about a related useful concept, namely how to reference a named pattern (but not the value captured earlier), which is extremely useful if you have some annoyingly long pattern that you need to match multiple times in the same regex.

For example,
(?'int'[-+]?\d+)\h*b+\h*(?&int)
matches an integer with leading + or minus, some b characters, and then another integer (referenced with (?&int))

I won’t expound too much on this topic because it’s also in the documentation, but I’ve definitely written many over-long regexes that could have been hugely simplified by this method.

@Dawn said in Internet Search YouTube:

By the way can I remove hotkeys I don’t use and that way setup the Run as a previous hotkey

Yes. Settings > Shortcut Mapper

Plus is there a way to select a line with a plugin hotkey so that I don’t need to use the triple click or use the hot key for selecting the front of the line and back of the line.

I already suggested the method of recording a macro for the selection. That is the way to get that sequence as a single keystroke.

OK, thanks @guy038

@zeta-orionis
By reading the manual, available online here.

Terry

A plugin I am developing can do this. It is called Columns++.

After installing the plugin, start Notepad++, open your file and select the entire file. Then, from the Columns++ menu under the Plugins menu, select Search…. Fill in:

Find what: num_1=\d+, num_2=\d+
Replace with: num_1=(?=match), num_2=(?=98+2*match)

and select Regular expression in the Search Mode box.

Then click the Replace All button.

@Richie
How many lines of data do you have? The optimal solution for this problem can vary a lot depending on how much data you have.

Also, are all the entries with duplicate values before the # consecutive? For example, are all T-shirt entries grouped together, or are there non-T-Shirt entries between the first T-shirt entry and the last?

Assuming the entries with duplicate values before # are grouped together, a reasonable solution (even for a large amount of data) would be as follows:

Go to the find/replace form, Mark tab (Ctrl+M with default hotkeys) With Bookmark line selected and using Regular expression as search mode, enter (?-s)(^[^#\r\n]+)#.*\R(\1#.*$\R?)+ into the Find what box, and hit Mark all. Notes on this regular expression (general resources available here): (?-s) means that the . metacharacter won’t match newlines. (^[^#\r\n]+)# tries to match a sequence of characters that are not # or a line-end character at the start of a line followed by #, and then stores it as capture group 1. .*\R matches any number of non-newline characters, then a newline. (\1#.*$\R?)+ matches at least one line where the thing before # in the first line is followed immediately by # and then any number of characters before the end of the line ($) and then possibly a newline (\R? - the only thing there could be other than a newline here is the end of the file) You will see all the lines with a duplicate entry before # marked. Use Search->Bookmark->Remove Non-Bookmarked lines from the main menu. Now all the entries with no duplicate before the # will remain.

Note that the Remove Non-Bookmarked lines operation can be rather slow if the number of lines to be removed is large (say, 10 thousand or more). If that’s a problem, you can use Copy Marked Text (the third button under the Mark all and Clear all marks buttons in the Mark form) instead to copy the text that you marked in step 2, then paste it into another buffer (or select the entire original file and paste over it). You’d have to do some simple regex-based postprocessing of the result after that, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for you.

If the entries with duplicate values are not grouped together, you will need to sort the entries by the value before the #, and then follow the steps above. This sorting is difficult to achieve without a custom script, but fortunately I and fellow forum regular AlanKilborn have already written such a script.

@mkupper
It probably works so that when N++ calls the printing WINAPI, that system call always checks for the above RegKey first and then adapts the appearance of the Print-dlg.

Because I could not reproduce the problem myself, I can only guess what a real problem is. Because the printing basically works (with admin-rights), perhaps the MS will be able to fix it in a later build.