Search code examples
textpad

TextPad Find Replace Commands Wild Cards

I am trying to figure out how I can put together a find and replace command with wildcards or figure out a way to find and replace the following example:

I would like to find terms that contain double quotes in front of them with a single quote at the end:

Example: find "joe' and replace with 'joe'

Basically, I'm trying to find all terms with terms having "in front and at the end.'

Solution

  • Check the [x] Regular expression checkbox in textpad's replace dialog and enter the following values:

    Find what:

    "([^'"]*)'

    Replace with:

    '\1'

    Explanation:

    In a regular expression, square brackets are used to indicate character classes. A character class beginning with a caret will match anything not in the class.
    Thus [^'"] will match any character except ' and ". The following * indicates that any number of these characters can follow. The ( and ) mark a group. And the group we're looking for starts with " and ends with '. Finally in the replace string we can refer to any group via \n where n is the nth group. In our case it is the first and only group and that is why we used \1.