gedit: search and replace with regular expressions

Question

I want to replace this with gedit:

 1299465 |  2003415 | 2015-09-06 05:35:34.59662+02
 1299449 |  2009400 | 2015-09-06 05:35:32.301683+02
 1299450 |  2008465 | 2015-09-06 05:35:32.451393+02
 1299457 |  2015211 | 2015-09-06 05:35:33.451049+02

to that:

How can I do this with gedit?

Background: I want to do it with gedit and not sed/python/.... since the replace needs to be done interactive.

So you want to strip off the outer fields? – Oli Sep 08 '15 at 14:18 — Oli, Sep 08 '15 at 14:18
@Oli yes I want to strip off the first and third column – guettli Sep 09 '15 at 13:45 — guettli, Sep 09 '15 at 13:45

Oli · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-08T14:43:15.413

77

From the standard Replace box (Control+H) you can use a little grouped regex to handle this:

Search for: .*\| (.*) \|.*
Replace with: \1
Check the box that has "Match as regular expression"

This is on Gedit 3.10.4, the default version in Ubuntu 14.04.

edited Sep 08 '15 at 14:43

answered Sep 08 '15 at 14:20

Oli

293,335

not working with no other plugins – AlexGreg Sep 08 '15 at 14:22
@AlexGreg Huh? This is with stock gedit on 14.04 as far as I can tell. I've nuked ~/.config/gedit and it still works. – Oli Sep 08 '15 at 14:31
well..not my case..weird – AlexGreg Sep 08 '15 at 14:34
1

@AlexGreg It works, you have to check the "Regular expression" checkbox tough – kos Sep 08 '15 at 14:37
that's the thing..I don't have that checkbox..using gedit 2.30.4 – AlexGreg Sep 08 '15 at 14:38
3

Sounds like you're using an ancient version of Ubuntu, @AlexGreg. Even 12.04 Precise —the oldest supported version of Ubuntu— is using 3.4.1. – Oli Sep 08 '15 at 14:46
@Oli yes, works great. I am happy :-) – guettli Sep 11 '15 at 06:39
This is a specific answer to a specific question. Is there any help for a more general test? I can't seem to capture a literal string. – JohnnyBizzle May 05 '18 at 15:20

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 08 '15 at 14:20

6

You can use the plugin advanced-find for gedit.

Install the plugin from here.

The instructions (if you don't know it already) on how to implement a gedit plugin is here

Then, use Oli's answer to strip the numbers you want from your question.

answered Sep 08 '15 at 14:20

ArcaneDominion

304
1
9

If you are running Mint, you will likely have an old version of gedit and then this is the best answer. – mcarans Jun 17 '16 at 08:35

gedit: search and replace with regular expressions

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