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regexnotepad++

Regex - match first 1000 symbols

Im using OpenOffice and Notepad++.

Need to match around first 1000 symbols (or less) in text until end of the sentence (dot sign). For example:

"Once upon a time ... around 1000 symbols ... the end.",

Then you click next search and get match of another around 1000 symbols that ends with . sign and so on.

I tried regex (?s).* that matches everything and .{0,1000} that stops when reaches line break.

I think I need something like .{0,1000}\.\n\r or .{0,1000}\.\S\s. I noticed that I need include things like e.g. in the regex, otherwise it matches ...e. and leaves g. apart. How to do that?

Solution

  • You can use

    (?s).{0,1000}[.?!…]\B

    See the regex demo.

    Details:

    • (?s) - a DOTALL modifier, . now matches line break chars
    • .{0,1000} - any 0 to 1000 chars
    • [.?!…]\B - a ., ?, ! or … that is either at the end of string or that is followed with a non-word char.