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Please help me in the following pattern

Current text

ALPHA;111,'BI_209' ALPHA;222,'BI_213' ALPHA;AAA,'BI_209' ALPHA;FFF,'BI_209' ALPHA;123,'BI_220'

Intended status after first round of find & replace in Notepad ++

BI_209;111,'BI_209' ALPHA;222,'BI_213' BI_209;AAA,'BI_209' BI_209;FFF,'BI_209' ALPHA;123,'BI_220'

As seen above, in the first round - I intend to search a specific pattern * ALPHA* BI_209* and replace with *BI_209*BI_209*.
Please help me with the correct regex in FIND as as well as REPLACE fields to achieve what I plan to get. Note there a varying texts like ';111,' ..... ';222,' .... ';AAA,' in between which shouldn't get changed or affected.

If I get a pattern for find & replace, it would be help in a second (and further) round(s) of multiple find & replace - to achieve this output

BI_209;111,'BI_209' BI_213;222,'BI_213' BI_209;AAA,'BI_209' BI_209;FFF,'BI_209' BI_220;123,'BI_220'
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2 Answers 2

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  1. Find what: ALPHA(.*'BI_209')

    Replace with: BI_209\1

    Explanation: what is matched by the regex between the parentheses gets saved, and can be recalled with \1. Parentheses can define multiple capture groups e.g. (ALPHA)(.*)('BI_209'), that can be reused with backreferences \1, \2, \3 ...

  2. Putting this all together, you could do all substitutions in one pass:

    Find what: ALPHA(.*)'(BI_209|BI_213|BI_220)'

    Replace with: \2\1'\2'

    Here, the | symbol specifies alternative strings to search for.

  3. Here's a more general solution in case you later add different codes:

    Find what: ALPHA(.*)'(BI_\d{3})'

    Replace with: \2\1'\2'

    Here \d matches any digit, and is a synonym for [0-9]; {3} is the repetition factor; \d{3} matches any sequence of exactly three digits.

Note: since paretheses are special characters, if you want to specify a literal ( or ) you need to escape it with a backslash, like so: \( and \).

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  • I went step by step in order to better explain the available options. Máté Juhász's answer immediately solves your last point and is more general. Commented Mar 9, 2017 at 10:49
  • Awesome explanation. I used the logic you gave to do everything at one shot . i.e search for (ALPHA)(.*)(BI_)(.*)(') and replace by \3\4\2\3\4\5 Commented Mar 9, 2017 at 11:07
  • Great, I like the fact that you could use the information provided to elaborate your own solution. Commented Mar 9, 2017 at 11:16
  • Simlev - Couple of questions Commented Mar 10, 2017 at 8:46
  • Simlev - Couple of questions. 1) - How to split when a bracket comes in way of text ..... example -> ALPHA('Hello') . I tried to use (ALPHA(')(.*)(')) . The plan was to slit like this ALPHA(' ->1 Hello ->2 ' ->3 .. it showed error. Is the only way to find the back references like this (ALPHA)(.*)(')(.*)(') meaning it splits ALPHA ->1 ( -> 2 ' -> 3 Hello ->4 ' ->5 Commented Mar 10, 2017 at 8:54
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To find a text ALPHA...'BI_xxx' and replace to 'BI_xxx'...'BI_xxx':

  • open find and replace dialog
  • check "regular expression"
  • find what: ALPHA(.*'(BI_\d+)')
  • replace to: \2\1
    test it here

This will match any 'BI_xxx' where xxx is a number of at least one digit.

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  • 1
    Worth my upvote, I didn't think of using nested capture groups. The inner set of () should be moved inside the '' in order to provide the exact solution. Commented Mar 10, 2017 at 9:38

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