Questions tagged [regular-expressions]
is for patterns specifying search or replace strings. Also known as `regex` or `regexp`, the patterns describe strings to match when searching or replacing. Emacs provides extensive support for `regex` patterns in many commands. Emacs also provides an interactive expression builder for such patterns.
397
questions
1
vote
1answer
27 views
Search for a capital letter in a string and move the cursor to it
I am trying to learn how to implement regular expressions in emacs. I have a string that looks like this:
Fname0 Mname0 Surname0Fname1 Surname1Fname2
I would like to search for any capital letter ...
1
vote
2answers
76 views
Using a variable as the REGEXP in `query-replace-regexp`
I know, Emacs allows calling ELisp while replacing a text with a regex, aka C-M-%, which is bound to query-replace-regexp. I'm trying to make use of that to store an unwieldy regexp as a variable, so ...
1
vote
0answers
12 views
Variant of read-regexp that shows matching string candidates upon TAB
I'm looking for an extension of read-regexp, that given an additional parameter of completion candidates, shows the matching subset of these candidates in the minibuffer, when tab is pressed. Similar ...
1
vote
1answer
58 views
How to find a newline with a regular expression in query-replace-regexp?
I am trying to use find-name-dired and query-replace-regexp to find and replace some blocks of text across multiple HTML files. (Just what is explained here in the Emacs Manual.)
query-replace-regexp ...
1
vote
1answer
38 views
How reliable is it to OR multiple user defined regular expressions?
Given multiple regular expressions, how reliable is it to group these into a single regex, without knowing their contents ahead of time.
e.g.
(re-search-forward
(concat
"\\("
"...
3
votes
2answers
239 views
How to check a regular expression is valid without using it for a search?
I would like to write a package that uses user defined regular expressions.
Is there a way to validate a regular expression is valid without having to perform a search, showing a helpful message when ...
0
votes
1answer
62 views
Regex to handle unicode strings in evil mode
I'm using evil mode on Emacs2 27.1 on OSX. My goal is to search and replace some text containing unicode strings using either of emacs' replace-regex or vim's search/replace functionality.
To begin ...
2
votes
1answer
28 views
Regex to match one tag and not the other in image-dired
In image-dired I use M-x image-dired-mark-tagged-files to mark files containing a tag using regexp. e.g. oil.
What regex do I need to mark oil but not wip (work in progress).
Input:
/foo/IMG_2022.JPG;...
1
vote
2answers
31 views
String-match: symbols variable void
I am trying to write a small function where I extract two sub-strings from a cite-key, e.g. cite:rammstein2017paris.
(defun citekey-get-author-and-year ()
"Get the _author_ and _YEAR_ ...
0
votes
0answers
5 views
Change er/mark-method-call() - based on regex - to include square and curly braces
This is a function definition from expand-region.el, which does not accept new Issues.
It looks at (), but not at [] or {}. How to change it to include other pairs too?
(defun er/mark-method-call ()
...
2
votes
1answer
48 views
How to replace the first element of the `kill-ring` by a modification of it?
I am trying to modify the string that is to yanked
My goal is to modify certains paths before yanking, in order to transform them in relative to path actual buffer file.
Following this post, I tried ...
0
votes
0answers
60 views
How do I split a side window?
I am using the org-roam package, which, while great, uses up the entire side window of my main emacs frame. I would like to use some of that side window to display something else, ideally an eaf ...
0
votes
1answer
33 views
Help with regex in re-builder : lines without “|” nor “;” at the beginning
I am starting regex with Emacs and cannot get the right regex.
I would like to match the line 1 and 4 in the image below, where variable-pitch is "active" and do not match 2 and 3 where is &...
0
votes
0answers
10 views
remove erroneous commands from ESS transcript
I'd like to better use my ESS transcript file while working on R.
I know how to clean the .Rout file only keeping the command lines.
But what could be great is to remove all the command lines that ...
0
votes
1answer
109 views
replace-regexp-in-string: How to prepend a string to the entire string matched?
I am adding divider lines to certain sections of the reports generated by the binary ledger [ https://www.ledger-cli.org/ ] through the function ledger-do-report in the ledger-mode Lisp library [ ...
0
votes
1answer
73 views
How can we get input using emacs?
In order to compile my lua code i use this config
(defun lua-main-compile ()
"use lua to compile my lua code"
(interactive)
(compile "lua main.lua"))
In my lua code ...
1
vote
1answer
46 views
How can I get the search string from incremental regexp search to use with replace regexp
If I want to do a replace-regexp I usually start with a isearch-forward-regexp so I can get immediate visual feedback on the search string.
From there I'd like to grab the search string for using in ...
1
vote
1answer
52 views
Regular expressions tool example explanation
Reading the section regular expressions in EmacsWiki appears this:
You can use a tool to construct regexps. For example, you can use ‘rx’ like this:
(rx (or (and "\*" (*? anything) "*/&...
0
votes
0answers
22 views
What regexp gives this Imenu output?
Suppose I have the following Python script:
def foo(x) -> int:
y = 2
return y+x
class Bar:
def __init__(s):
self.s = s
def buz(x, y):
return x*y
My current Imenu ...
0
votes
1answer
77 views
Regex to replace subset of repeated pattern
ABC、DEF, GHI, JKL、MNO
PQR、STU, VWX、YZ
How do I replace all , s with 、 in the repeated pattern above?
The repeated pattern can be mapped with the regex below:
"^\\([A-Z]+、\\)\\(\\([A-Z]+\\), \\)+&...
0
votes
1answer
34 views
How can I paste a defvar into the minibuffer?
I've written a regular expression to transform Markdown links into Org Mode links and I've stored it into a variable.
(defvar markdown-link-to-org-regexp "s/\[\(.+\)\](\(.+\))/[[\2][\1]]")
...
4
votes
1answer
492 views
Regex for the last line of a string
I'm trying to search for the last line in a string (lines separated by \n) using string match but I cannot make it work as intended. The code below evaluates to 0 while I would have expected 4. I ...
1
vote
2answers
57 views
Remove everything except match of regexp?
I have a file with a structure like:
some text and numbers and a final number: 1.213,31
some other number 1231 and text
again some text and a final number: 53,00
something else
again a final number: ...
1
vote
1answer
22 views
Interactively pass argument and use regex in find replace
I have written the following code
(defun krmet-replace()
(interactive)
(save-excursion
(save-restriction
;; Narrow to the region
(narrow-to-...
1
vote
1answer
101 views
org-mode: specifying a hyperlink target as regex and jumping directly to match?
The documentation of a Fortran code, being done in org-mode, is intended to
be done in such a way that changing the Fortran source code to be documented
should be kept at a minimum.
There is the ...
1
vote
1answer
130 views
Emacs outline-mode custom heading and space between headers
I'm trying to define a structure for outline-minor-mode so I can organize my init.el conf without relying in org.
So far I could not get to work with two levels of heading, I would like to have ;;; ...
1
vote
1answer
26 views
Syntax highlighting of keywords only if following builtin
I'm writing a syntax highlighting mode and am trying to highlight certain arguments, only if they are following a specific word.
I've written a MWE to show my problem:
(defvar mwe-builtin-list '("...
1
vote
1answer
29 views
Decode double-back-slashes-prefixed octal codes in 'utf-8
I have a string "\\303\\273" that I want to decode into û.
It's known that (decode-coding-string "\303\273" 'utf-8) evals to û.
However, I'm not able to translate "\\303\\273&...
1
vote
1answer
30 views
flush-lines fails in script but works when called otherwise
I'm very new to programming in Elisp so maybe the mistake is there but I'm completely stuck right now.
I wanted to make a small, simple Elisp function to remove the AUTOs from my Verilog files so I ...
1
vote
1answer
73 views
Remove multiple blank lines in a buffer, leave one
I'd like to take a buffer which looks like this:
one
two
three
four
five
And turn it into this
one
two
three
four
five
I've tried using delete-blank-line, however, it will only effect the area ...
0
votes
1answer
34 views
.+$ fails to match remainder of line
This matches nothing:
Query replace regexp (default \.org.+ → ): \.org.+$ →
The same without '$' matches incompletely:
I'd like to be able to match \.org and all that follows.
0
votes
2answers
130 views
Filter list by regexps
How can I get all elements of a list which don't match multiple
patterns? The patterns are given as a list.
For instance, I want all files without '("no" "nix") in them.
(setq se-...
1
vote
0answers
33 views
`string-match' and `match-string' in Emacs Lisp [duplicate]
I try to understand the functions match-string and string-match in Emacs Lisp.
The manual provides what seems to be (?) a reproducible example:
(string-match "\\(qu\\)\\(ick\\)"
...
1
vote
3answers
72 views
imenu to copy the target instead of jumping to it?
Is it possible to use imenu (or another package) to copy the target (specified by a regex) rather than jumping to it?
This is an effort for tackling the question: How to list or autocomplete pandoc-...
0
votes
0answers
54 views
Ignoring specific files in recentf-mode by their exact filenames
I am having trouble to Ignoring specific files in recentf-mode.
(add-to-list 'recentf-exclude "company-statistics-cache.el")
On my end, I want to ignore them by their exact file names instead of ...
0
votes
1answer
50 views
Programmatically find-and-replace custom sequence
I need to write a command which will apply to my buffer custom, predefined copy-and-replace sequence.
What I have is:
(defun custom-processor ()
"Formats logs to human-readable format"
((replace-...
0
votes
1answer
177 views
How to search with a regexp before point?
I would like to know a function that searches a pattern located before point.
re-search-backward is mentioned in the Elisp manual but I do not understand its purpose. Indeed, I do not understand the ...
0
votes
1answer
58 views
Regexp: how to search-replace any html attribute in current buffer
Disclaimer: I'm still trying to learn elisp so I have not gotten yet to the RegExp section of the Elisp intro or Emacs manual.
I would like to know how to search and replace an HTML buffer that has ...
0
votes
1answer
42 views
thing-at-point does not bound url properly due to backslash in url
I am trying to filter URLs and elisp thing-at-point 'url doesn't bounds a url properly because it has backslashes \in it. I believe that backslashes are unsafe in urls, but that's a separate topic. ...
2
votes
1answer
41 views
Why is the order of : and - important in a regexp character class
Defining the following function
(defun windows-path-backwards ()
(interactive)
(skip-chars-backward "a-zA-Z0-9\\\\_-:"))
and running it while standing at | in the below text
C:\this\path|
...
2
votes
2answers
125 views
Not matching a character at the beginning of line
I would like to match lines that have the phrase a test but not start with >. So I want to match
This is a test
a test this is
but not
> This is a test
I am not sure how to do this without ...
1
vote
1answer
108 views
How to replace strings including `.` (dot) as first character using dired-do-find-regexp-and-replace
(defun my-find-orgfiles ()
(interactive)
(find-name-dired "." "*py"))
(global-set-key (kbd "M-n") 'my-find-orgfiles)
Than, t to toggle marked/unmarked files (thus marking them all, since none ...
1
vote
1answer
102 views
search-forward-regexp with back reference
I have the following text
\begin{comment}
TEXT
\end{comment}
\begin{verbatim}
TEXT
\end{verbatim}
and the regular expression "\\begin{\([^}]*\)} to match the \begin statements and capture the ...
2
votes
0answers
53 views
org-table: hide grid lines
I like how org-mode allows me to quickly create and edit tables. However, I do not like the table's appearance and I would like to modify it.
Customizing the face only lets me change foreground and ...
2
votes
2answers
188 views
How to get the position after matching and replacing a regular expression (replace-match)?
SHORT
How to substitute (nicely) a regular expression by a string in pure elisp, like the unix command sed.
LONG
I'm using the function replace-match after string-match, but I can't get the right ...
1
vote
1answer
487 views
How to regex match words? (in multiple languages)
I have a simple regex search which matches [A-Za-z], however I would like it to match other characters which would be used in dictionary words for non-english languages. e.g. ü, Ø, ɵ 人参, while ...
3
votes
2answers
132 views
Check whether a string is a date in a specific format, e.g. “%Y-%m-%d”
I have a string and would like to check whether it contains a date in a given date format, e.g. "%Y-%m-%d", with format as for format-time-string. This is for a package and users can configure the ...
0
votes
1answer
59 views
How to set a variable that matches different type of strings?
I have these strings:
First Type:
arXiv:1234.56789
arXiv:1234.56789v1
Second type:
hep-th/123456789
hep-th.AB/12345689
hep-th/123456789v1
hep-th.AB/12345689
Belong to the second type even strings ...
3
votes
1answer
59 views
can emacs memoize regexps?
This is really a question about implementation rather than anything a user of GNU Emacs would be interested in.
Emacs regexps are represented as strings. There is a nice rx DSL for constructing ...
4
votes
1answer
189 views
Non-greedy regex group
This is related to my previous question over here.
(replace-regexp "\\(\\[\\[\\)\\(zotero:.+\\]\\)\\(\\[.+，[《〈][^《〈]+[》〉]\\)?.+。\\(\\]\\]\\)" "\\1cite-\\2\\3\\4，頁")
I'd like to use the above code ...
