Ok so I am trying to group past the 9th backreference in notepad++. The wiki says that I can use group naming to go past the 9th reference. However, I can't seem to get the syntax right to do the match. I am starting off with just two groups to make it simple.
Sample Data
1000,1000
Regex.
(?'a'[0-9]*),([0-9]*)
According to the docs I need to do the following.
(?<some name>...), (?'some name'...),(?(some name)...)
Names this group some name.
However, the result is that it can't find my text. Any suggestions?
You can simply reference groups > 9 in the same way as those < 10
i.e $10 is the tenth group.
For (naive) example:
String:
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Regex find:
(?:a)(b)(c)(d)(e)(f)(g)(h)(i)(j)(k)(l)(m)(n)(o)(p)
Replace:
$10
Result:
kqrstuvwxyz
My test was performed in Notepad++ v6.1.2 and gave the result I expected.
Update: This still works as of v7.5.6
SarcasticSully resurrected this to ask the question:
"What if you want to replace with the 1st group followed by the character '0'?"
To do this change the replace to:
$1\x30
Which is replacing with group 1 and the hex character 30
- which is a 0
in ascii.
A very belated answer to help others who land here from Google (as I did). Named backreferences in notepad++ substitutions look like this: $+{name}
. For whatever reason.
There's a deviation from standard regex gotcha here, though... named backreferences are also given numbers. In standard regex, if you have (.*)(?<name> & )(.*)
, you'd replace with $1${name}$2
to get the exact same line you started with. In notepad++, you would have to use $1$+{name}$3
.
Example: I needed to clean up a Visual Studio .sln file for mismatched configurations. The text I needed to replace looked like this:
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.Dev|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.Dev|Any CPU.Build.0 = Debug|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.Dev|x64.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.Dev|x64.Build.0 = Debug|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.Dev|x86.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.Dev|x86.Build.0 = Debug|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.QA|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.QA|Any CPU.Build.0 = Release|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.QA|x64.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.QA|x64.Build.0 = Release|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.QA|x86.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.QA|x86.Build.0 = Release|Any CPU
My search RegEx:
^(\s*\{[^}]*\}\.)(?<config>[a-zA-Z0-9]+\|[a-zA-Z0-9 ]+)*(\..+=\s*)(.*)$
My replacement RegEx:
$1$+{config}$3$+{config}
The result:
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.Dev|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Dev|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.Dev|Any CPU.Build.0 = Dev|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.Dev|x64.ActiveCfg = Dev|x64
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.Dev|x64.Build.0 = Dev|x64
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.Dev|x86.ActiveCfg = Dev|x86
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.Dev|x86.Build.0 = Dev|x86
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.QA|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = QA|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.QA|Any CPU.Build.0 = QA|Any CPU
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.QA|x64.ActiveCfg = QA|x64
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.QA|x64.Build.0 = QA|x64
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.QA|x86.ActiveCfg = QA|x86
{CDDB12FE-885F-4FB7-9724-1A4279573DE5}.QA|x86.Build.0 = QA|x86
Hope this helps someone.
OK, matching is no problem, your example matches for me in the current Notepad++. This is an important point. To use PCRE regex in Notepad++, you need a Version >= 6.0.
The other point is, where do you want to use the backreference? I can use named backreferences without problems within the regex, but not in the replacement string.
means
(?'a'[0-9]*),([0-9]*),\g{a}
will match
1000,1001,1000
But I don't know a way to use named groups or groups > 9 in the replacement string.
Do you really need more than 9 backreferences in the replacement string? If you just need more than 9 groups, but not all of them in the replacement, then make the groups you don't need to reuse non-capturing groups, by adding a ?:
at the start of the group.
(?:[0-9]*),([0-9]*),(?:[0-9]*),([0-9]*)
group 1 group 2