Re: [libreoffice-users] Find/Replace Regex

At 16:55 07/11/2013 +1300, Steve Edmonds wrote:
> I am trying to find and replace some text with regex in calc. Can 
> anyone help with how I make it non-greedy.

I think the answer is that you don't: you must find a way of 
constructing a suitable expression despite such expressions being greedy.

> I tried \([:digit:].*?[:digit:]\) in place of 
> \([:digit:].*[:digit:]\) but both are greedy. When the following 
> (12-34-23) cat (233) is in a selected cell it replaces both 
> instances between ().

By the way, I don't understand your ".*?" - do you perhaps mean 
either ".*" or ".?" ?

I'm afraid you've fallen into the common trap of attempting to define 
your problem by quoting only expressions that *don't* work!  Which 
parenthesised string do you want to match?  I'm guessing the 
first.  But what exactly are the characteristics of the strings you 
want to match?  And the ones you want not to match?

Is the target string always at the beginning?  Try:
\<\([^\)]*\)

Is the target string always digits-hyphen-digits-hyphen-digits?  Try:
\([:digit:]+-[:digit:]+-[:digit:]+\)
or:
\(\d+-\d+-\d+\)

Do you want to match the second string instead? Try:
\([:digit:]+\)
or:
\(\d+\)

Depending on exactly what you want to match and to avoid matching, 
you may have to do something different.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted