How can I change / alter this with Notepad++ as follows
- break each line of 50 digits (5 sets of 10) into single lines with 25 digits per line
- insert a hyphen after each 5 digits ensure the line
- breaks to new line after 25 digits
Using the manual for Notepad++, we can write expressions to search and replace the text as you require.
- To build a search expression, start with breaking down your starting text into subexpressions, which will allow you to construct your result. The expression should describe one line at a time, since each line has the same pattern. In this case, we want 1 line to become 2 lines. A line in the search expression contains the 50 digits in 5 equally sized groups and delimited by a space. To identify a digit, let's use a set of characters defined as:
[set] ⇒ This indicates a set of characters, for example, [abc] means
any of the literal characters a, b or c. You can also use ranges by doing a hyphen
between characters, for example [a-z] for any character from a to z
In our case, we want to match any character between 0-9, so we can use [0-9]. Next, we need to identify the groups in the subexpression, which can be done using Multiplying operators and {N}.
{ℕ} ⇒ Matches ℕ copies of the element it applies to (where ℕ is any decimal number).
N is determined from the replacement line pattern, which has 25 digits, grouped into 5 equally sized groups delimited by a '-'. The size of the group is N, which equals 5. Therefore, we can generate the replacement text searching for subexpressions [0-9]{5} in the original text.
Next, Numbered Capture Groups can be used to number the subexpression for the replace operation.
(subset) ⇒ Numbered Capture Group: Parentheses mark a subset of the
regular expression, also known as a subset expression or capture
group. The string matched by the contents of the parentheses
(indicated by subset in this example) can be re-used with a
backreference or as part of a replace operation
So, to match a single subexpression and have a numbered reference for later, we use ([0-9]{5}).
Then, the search expression to match a single line becomes:
([0-9]{5})([0-9]{5}) ([0-9]{5})([0-9]{5}) ([0-9]{5})([0-9]{5}) ([0-9]{5})([0-9]{5}) ([0-9]{5})([0-9]{5})
- In order to build the replace expression, a Substitution Escape Sequence,
$N, can be used:
$ℕ, ${ℕ}, \ℕ ⇒ Returns what matched the ℕth subexpression (numbered
capture group), where ℕ is a positive integer (1 or larger).
So, from the search expression above, $1 corresponds to 14159 (in the first line).
Putting it together, the replace expression for a single line would be:
$1-$2-$3-$4-$5\r\n$6-$7-$8-$9-$10
Is it possible to remove and replace specific characters with x's - as
below:
Yes, this can be accomplished by choosing these characters in the appropriate subexpressions and selecting the correct numbered reference. For example, the search expression above contains ([0-9]{5}), which is a distinct numbered reference used later made up of 5 digits. If we wanted to replace the first character with 'x', this would become [0-9]([0-9]{4}). The corresponding portion of the replacement expression would be x$1 (assuming it is the first numbered reference). Similarly, If we wanted to replace the first 2 characters with 'x' [0-9]{2}([0-9]{3}). and xx$1 can be used, and so on.
For this specific case:
14159-26535-xxxx3-xxxx6-xxxx3
83279-50288-xxxx1-xxxx9-xxxx0
58209-74944-xxxx0-xxxx4-xxxx6
20899-86280-xxxx5-xxxx1-xxxx9
The search expression is:
([0-9]{5})([0-9]{5}) [0-9]{4}([0-9])[0-9]{4}([0-9]) [0-9]{4}([0-9])([0-9]{5}) ([0-9]{5})[0-9]{4}([0-9]) [0-9]{4}([0-9])[0-9]{4}([0-9])
The replace expression is:
$1-$2-xxxx$3-xxxx$4-xxxx$5\r\n$6-$7-xxxx$8-xxxx$9-xxxx$10
