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.
369
questions
1
vote
1answer
18 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
23 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
32 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
39 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
25 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
54 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
34 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
26 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
50 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
30 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
37 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
40 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
41 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
36 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
35 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
43 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 ...
1
vote
2answers
76 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
44 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
71 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
44 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 ...
2
votes
1answer
46 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
97 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 ...
1
vote
2answers
71 views
How to match first character in line after asteriks and space using regex?
For example i have lines:
* test1
** another tests
* some other line
I would like to match t in first line, a in second, s in third.
0
votes
1answer
49 views
what does the vertical bar “|” mean in sentence-end?
Reference to 12.1 The Regular Expression for sentence-end of Elisp introduction
It illustrate alternatives of sentence-end as
\\($\\| \\| \\)
^ ^^
TAB SPC
and explains:
Two ...
0
votes
0answers
49 views
Why is Emacs hanging or seeming like it isin an infinite loop?
In my current Emacs major-mode for Tecplot macro development, I have a few functions defined:
(defconst tecplot-macro-mode-syntax-table
(let ((table (make-syntax-table)))
;; ' is a string ...
0
votes
1answer
38 views
How do I build a regexp that enables Emacs to set all words to the left of an equal sign a specific font-lock-*-face?
Following some help provided by Tobias, I am trying to assign a font-lock-keyword-face to all text (:alpha:) to the left of an equal sign (=) in a new Tecplot major mode. I read through the regexp ...
0
votes
1answer
49 views
Regexp for the inverse of a match
Given a regexp A, how do I derive the inverse regexp B such that given any text exactly one of the two regexes will match it.
For example in the below example:
(rx (or (group ---regexpA---) ; a ...
1
vote
1answer
145 views
How to regexp-search for a word surrounded by spaces
I'm looking at this
One use of regexp-quote is to combine an exact string match with
context described as a regular expression. For example, this searches
for the string that is the value of ...
2
votes
1answer
46 views
Query replace regexp with a distant match?
I have a single transcript file for a set of course lectures I am watching. After doing some formatting on the file. I have it broken up into sets of lessons where the main heading is the lesson title ...
0
votes
1answer
42 views
Limit font-lock highliting to first N chars of line
I write regex for font-lock and I know that the date should appear in first 40 chars of line.
How can I limit search beyond some limit?
I tried to add ^.\\{0,40\\}XXX but Emacs regex . is greedy ...
0
votes
1answer
41 views
Regular expression to ignore a domain in address completion
I read the manual on address autocompletion:
mu4e-compose-complete-ignore-address-regexp — a regular expression to filter out other ‘junk’ e-mail addresses; defaults to "no-?reply".
I am looking ...
-1
votes
1answer
82 views
Counting number of matches in number of lines for regex search
I have functions that run re-search-forward and gather its output into a buffer.
(defun my-search (pattern)
"Uses `re-search-forward` to return matching lines."
(let ((src)
(rslt))
(...
0
votes
1answer
106 views
re-search-forward Regex behavior for OR boolean
We usually use \| to depict OR in Regex. Using a\|b as input to Regexp I-search and Occur both gave the desired result. But re-search-forward seems unable to recognize this notation.
abcdcba
(re-...
2
votes
2answers
154 views
Regexp for matching quoted strings that may have control characters in them
I am trying to use a regexp to match strings, e.g. a pattern that matches these kinds of quoted strings:
"test" or 'test' or 'test with "quote"' or "test with 'quote'"
This pattern matches all those,...
0
votes
1answer
30 views
How to find the next match with re-builder?
I built a complicated regular expression with re-builder and see that it works with the matches I want. How can I find all the matches, as I would with C-s in isearch-forward?
2
votes
0answers
50 views
Is point in a regexp?
I am looking for something like thing-at-point for a regexp. For example, I want a function called regexp-at-point-p that will return the matched text if the text around the point matches the regexp ...
2
votes
1answer
52 views
Can Dired query replace use regular expression to rename a group of files?
So I have long list of files that I'm trying to use regex to rename but, it looks like it does not take standard regular expressions. I’m sure I’m just doing this incorrectly.
After entering dired ...
0
votes
2answers
103 views
How to match the nondirectory part of a filename with a regular expression?
Whats the correct way to match a filename from a full path using string-match-p.
Say I want to check if the file is a git commit message COMMIT_EDITMSG or svn-commit.tmp or svn-commit.3.tmp to pass ...
0
votes
0answers
77 views
Regular expression for finding 'href' attribute value of <a> HTML element
I need a regex pattern for finding web page links in HTML.
For example
<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=elisp+regex+lookaround" ....></a>
I can use (?<=href=\").+?(?=\") | (?&...
0
votes
0answers
14 views
How to remove all console.logs() from the buffer and also how to comment all console.logs from the buffer?
When I do a regex-replace and replace with the empty string, the console.logs() are removed but the empty lines still remain. How would I remove these empty lines?
Furthermore, how would I replace all ...
4
votes
2answers
579 views
Non-greedy regex not working
I can't seem to get the non-greedy regex to work.
Sample String:
ABCD，E《F》、《GH》、《XYIJ》、《KL》、《MN》。
Regex Code:
《.+?IJ》
Search Result:
Because .+? is a non-greedy input, I was expecting the ...
1
vote
1answer
45 views
Regex search contains font-lock strings
I am searching in a buffer for a regular expression by this snippet:
(setq jb-revision-version "\\([[:digit:]]+\\.?\\)")
(setq jb-revision-string "\\(\\(Revision\\|Id\\): +\\)")
(progn
(save-...
4
votes
1answer
48 views
How to highlight digit groups of 3 in numerals?
I find it very useful to visually distinguish every 3 digit group of numbers in source code so that I can read it. For example something if I see 1000000 it is fairly easy to see that this is 1M ...
0
votes
0answers
59 views
Regex search and edit text simultaneously with multiple cursors
I'd like to search for a pattern with regex and simultaneously cut or edit all instances of that pattern.
Is there a ready-made function for this?
Atom, for example, has one such package - by ...
1
vote
1answer
54 views
Accessing regular expression groups outside a buffer
The code from here accesses groups of a regular expression match in a buffer in interactive mode:
(let ((re (concat "\\([ \t]*" org-clock-string " *\\)"
"\\([[<][^]>]+[]&...
0
votes
1answer
64 views
Regular expression gives different results as variable and as literal
In the Emacs *scratch* buffer, I get different results when I use the same regular expression as a variable compared to a literal:
(setq splitter-string "9:20")
"9:20"
(string-match "[0-9]?[0-9]:[0-...
0
votes
1answer
51 views
How to count regexp in a string and use that number in replacement?
In my LaTeX code I want to replace these strings:
\left.\left.\left.
\left.\left.
\left.
with:
\left.\left.\left. \mycommand{3}
\left.\left. \mycommand{2}
\left. \mycommand{1}
where the argument ...
1
vote
0answers
48 views
Why correct regexp not work in query-replace-regexp?
I want to add 400 in every line where has text "finished".
Here text and regexp:
as you can see the regexp is correct
"finished":\s-*[0-9]+
Nice.
Now I use this regexp in query-replace-regexp
...
4
votes
1answer
147 views
Is [:space:] same as \s-?
Emacs 26.1
In regexp help https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/RegularExpression
has the next regexp:
[:space:] a whitespace character
Is this a same as:
[ \t\r\n\v\f]
and same as
\s-
?
0
votes
1answer
169 views
Replace full-width numerals with half-width numerals
I'd like to convert numerals from half-width to full-width characters with a simple regex search and replace as follows:
replace-regexp-in-string regexp rep string &optional fixedcase literal ...
