Re: [libreoffice-users] Find all within brackets

At 18:42 10/09/2020 +0100, Séamas Ó Brógáin wrote:
> Some time ago Brian Barker provided a brilliant 
> formula for finding all text between less-than and greater-than signs, namely
> <[^>]*>
>
> I've been trying to adapt it to finding text 
> within brackets [thus], but without success. I 
> know that brackets as such, as distinct from 
> regular expressions, are identified as \[ and 
> \]; so the formula I've come up with is
> \[[^>]*\]
>
> Unfortunately there are two things wrong with 
> this: (1) it finds all text until a later 
> closing bracket (seemingly the last one in the 
> same paragraph) but not necessarily the immediately following one, ...

That central greater-than sign also needs to become a close bracket:
\[[^]]*\]

> ... and (2) the selection includes the brackets 
> themselves, whereas I only want the text that 
> they enclose. Am I attempting the impossible?

Yes and no. I don't see how you can match 
something that then doesn't include parts of the 
pattern. (Others may know better.) But there are things you can do:

o If you want to replace what is contained in the 
brackets but not the brackets themselves, you can 
reinsert them in the "Replace with" string, as "[something-else]" (no quotes).

o You can mark the brackets and their contents 
separately - using parentheses - and then use the parts in the replacement. Use
(\[)[^]]*(\])
and then "$1something-else$2" (no quotes) in the 
replacement. "$1" refers to the first 
parenthesised part and "$2" to the second - in 
this case the brackets themselves.

o Another technique would be to match the entire 
string, including the brackets, do what you want 
with that, and then perform another Find & 
Replace to correct the unwanted effect on the 
brackets. One idea might be to include additional 
brackets in the replacement, so that the result 
would be "[[something-else]]". Then it would be a 
simple task to search for those double brackets and do whatever was required.

It's difficult to be more precise without knowing 
exactly what you are trying to achieve.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


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