A look at

the power of Regular Expressions

for the layman
Use in Notepad++

Anjesh Tuladhar
http://anjesh.blogspot.com
http://just-tech.blogspot.com
Alert

• Don’t expect to master regular expressions (regex) in

this short presentation.
• This shows how you can exploit regex to make your work a
breeze
• It takes a lot of time and hard work to learn regex
• You don’t have to be a programmer to master regular
expressions, though being a programmer is definitely a
plus point
Remove numbers from the list of 1000 rows of names
Choose “Replace” from “Search” menu
You will get a replace dialog box.
Type [0-9]* (.*) in find what box, \1 in replace with box.
Note: There’s a space between [0-9]* and (.*).
Check Regular Expression checkbox to exploit regex functionality.
Hurray! Done.
A short explanation

• [0-9]* will match numbers only

• In our case it matches numbers only
• .* will match any characters, including numbers till the
end of the line
• Use of the curve brackets will act as a memory
• Enclosing .* with brackets like (.*) will allow to access it using
\1 (see in the replace box)
• The space between [0-9]* and (.*) represents the actual
space between numbers and the names in the list
Now you have to swap numbers and names, but separated by comma.
Type ([0-9]*) (.*) in find what box, \2,\1 in replace with
box.
Replaced!
A short explanation

• See previous explanation for [0-9]* and (.*)

• Now enclosing [0-9]* with curve brackets will allow to
access it
• First curve bracket can be accessed using \1 and second
can be accessed using \2
• Hence we are swapping the position of names and numbers
Now you have to remove numbers, put last-name first, followed by
first-name, and separated by comma.
Type ([0-9]*) ([^ ]*) (.*) in find what box, \3,\2 in replace with box.
Replaced!
A short explanation

• [0-9]* will match numbers only

• [^ ]* will match anything from the current position till
it finds space, which in our case will match the first-
names only
• .* will match any character from the current position
till the end of the line
• Now [0-9]* is accessed using \1, [^ ]* is accessed using
\2 and .* is access using \3, since all of those
expressions are enclosed with curve brackets
The beginning

Make today
a noble beginning
with The Regular Expressions