Thanks Rod, but absolutely nothing is being selected when I use that in the find field.
Question: Why do you replace the month with three patterns when just one will suffice as I did with (.+?)? Question: Why use \d\d for the day of the month, when sometimes it will just be one digit and not two? Again, wouldn’t (.+?) be better to cover any scenario? Question: Why is (?s)^( needed before Last Updated when Last Updated will already be added to the replacement as I have it now? I am far from a pro when it comes to greg patterns, and I am not challenging you. I am simply trying to understand why you made the choices that you did. My original find pattern works fine, all except for printing the text part of the synopsis. I really just need to know what to put instead of that last (.+?) before the \n\n in my original pattern. Thanks. > On Jul 22, 2025, at 11:41 PM, Rod Buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > Try this: > > Search > (?s)^(Last Updated: [A-Z][a-z][a-z]\. \d\d?, \d\d\d\d)\n\n(.+)\n\n\n\n > > Replace > \1\n\nSynopsis:\n\n<==========================================================>\n\n\2\n\n<==========================================================>\n\n\n\n > > — > Rod > > > > >> On Jul 22, 2025 at 6:26:16 AM, Bill Kochman wrote: >> Greetings friends, >> >> I am trying to do a global find and replace on a folder of 1,154 BBEdit >> documents. The operation needs to be very precise, as otherwise, it will >> REALLY mess me up, and will result in hours — if not days — of unnecessary >> work on my part. >> >> At the moment, all of my BBB articles have a header at the top, part of >> which looks like this: >> >> Last Updated: Jan. 10, 2011 >> >> The Year 2000 Hype, Aliens, Spirit Helpers, Channelers And >> Esoteric Knowledge, Propagation Of New Age Thought, Sheldon >> Nidle, UFO Mass Landings, Photon Belt, The Ascension Point, >> False Prophets & Charlatans Exposed By Time, The 2012 Hype, >> Stanley A. Fulham And The Transcendors, Weeds And Parable Of >> Wheat & Tares, Measuring Rod Of God's Word, Strong Delusion, >> Beware Of Time-Based Predictions, Verify The Reliability Of >> Source Information, Failed Predictions Weaken Faith In God's >> Word, Modern Scoffers And Christ's Return, Satan's Scheme To >> Discredit True Prophets Of God, True Faith Does Not Require >> Evidence Signs Or Miracles, Modern Apostasy, Mary Apparition >> In Wisconsin, Decline Of Roman Catholicism And Mary Worship, >> Evil Generation Seeks A Sign, Jewish Elders Demanded A Sign, >> Jewish Religious Elders Concealed Evidence Of Resurrection >> >> The body of text you see above is obviously different in each article, and >> followed by three blank lines. Then the main body of the article begins. >> >> To give you a quick background, I have been working on creating my own GPT >> at chatgpt.com <http://chatgpt.com/> for the past two weeks. However, my GPT >> has MAJOR problems with parsing text, accurate data retrieval, >> misattributions, hallucinations, inventions, etc. >> >> So one thing I though to do was to clarify that the above text after the >> date is actually the synopsis before the main body of each article. So what >> I am trying to do is to add the word “Synopsis", following by a divider on a >> new line, then the above text, followed by another divider on a new line, >> followed by three blank lines. In other words, the end product should look >> like this: >> >> >> Last Updated: Jan. 10, 2011 >> >> Synopsis: >> >> <==========================================================> >> >> The Year 2000 Hype, Aliens, Spirit Helpers, Channelers And >> Esoteric Knowledge, Propagation Of New Age Thought, Sheldon >> Nidle, UFO Mass Landings, Photon Belt, The Ascension Point, >> False Prophets & Charlatans Exposed By Time, The 2012 Hype, >> Stanley A. Fulham And The Transcendors, Weeds And Parable Of >> Wheat & Tares, Measuring Rod Of God's Word, Strong Delusion, >> Beware Of Time-Based Predictions, Verify The Reliability Of >> Source Information, Failed Predictions Weaken Faith In God's >> Word, Modern Scoffers And Christ's Return, Satan's Scheme To >> Discredit True Prophets Of God, True Faith Does Not Require >> Evidence Signs Or Miracles, Modern Apostasy, Mary Apparition >> In Wisconsin, Decline Of Roman Catholicism And Mary Worship, >> Evil Generation Seeks A Sign, Jewish Elders Demanded A Sign, >> Jewish Religious Elders Concealed Evidence Of Resurrection >> >> <==========================================================> >> >> >> >> >> The dates are different for every article, as is the text of the synopsis. >> As such I have tried to use something like the following in the find field: >> >> Last Updated: (.+?)\. (.+?), ([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])\n\n(.+?)\n\n\n\n >> >> The problem is that I cannot figure out what to use to cover the main text >> part of the synopsis which is AFTER ([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])\n\n and BEFORE >> \n\n\n\n. You can see that I have added a final (.+?) for the main text of >> the syopsis. However, when I use that, the text is not being highlighted, so >> that is apparently wrong. >> >> In the replace field, I am currently using the following, where \4 >> represents the main text part of the synopsis: >> >> Last Updated: \1\. \2, >> \3\n\nSynopsis:\n\n<==========================================================>\n\n\4<==========================================================>\n\n\n\n >> >> Not only can I not find the right syntax to represent the text part of the >> synopsis, but If I run it just like that, with the actual text included in >> the replace field -- instead of the final (.+?) -- BBEdit throws up this >> error: >> >> -- >> This is the BBEdit Talk public discussion group. If you have a feature >> request or believe that the application isn't working correctly, please >> email "[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>" rather than >> posting here. Follow @bbedit on Mastodon: <https://mastodon.social/@bbedit> >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "BBEdit Talk" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>. >> To view this discussion visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/AB9E16F3-E3B4-4D9F-A6F1-51BB443B3ED7%40gmail.com. >> <Find-Replace-Error.jpg> >> If I hit the “Replace” button anyway, the results are this, and the text >> body of the synopsis is wiped out completely: >> >> Last Updated: Jan. 10, 2011 >> >> Synopsis: >> >> <==========================================================> >> >> <==========================================================> >> >> >> >> Those are three blank likes above this line. So what am I doing wrong? How >> do I get it to recognize the changing text in the synopsis section, so that >> it replaces everything, but includes the right synopsis text for each >> article when I do a global find and replace? >> >> Thanks to anyone who can help me figure out the last piece of the puzzle. >> >> Kind regards, >> >> Bill Kochman >> >> >> -- >> This is the BBEdit Talk public discussion group. If you have a feature >> request or believe that the application isn't working correctly, please >> email "[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>" rather than >> posting here. Follow @bbedit on Mastodon: <https://mastodon.social/@bbedit> >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "BBEdit Talk" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>. >> To view this discussion visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/AB9E16F3-E3B4-4D9F-A6F1-51BB443B3ED7%40gmail.com. >> > > > -- > This is the BBEdit Talk public discussion group. If you have a feature > request or believe that the application isn't working correctly, please email > "[email protected]" rather than posting here. Follow @bbedit on Mastodon: > <https://mastodon.social/@bbedit> > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "BBEdit Talk" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/1619kQSNg0RNaf4Mdr%40gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/1619kQSNg0RNaf4Mdr%40gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- This is the BBEdit Talk public discussion group. If you have a feature request or believe that the application isn't working correctly, please email "[email protected]" rather than posting here. Follow @bbedit on Mastodon: <https://mastodon.social/@bbedit> --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BBEdit Talk" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/588AFAD1-6BD7-4E3A-BF86-A54D1A9E9A5F%40gmail.com.
