Find/Replace but Increment Value

Question

I have an .HTML file that has many photos attached to it for displaying a photo gallery. I'm replacing old photos with new ones, and I'm thinking there must be a more intelligent way than simply copying and pasting repetitive file names.

I would love to be able to replace and increment a file name on each replace, starting at a base file name of my choosing. For example...

...images/69thStreet010.jpg
...images/69thStreet011.jpg
...images/69thStreet012.jpg

Basically performing a CTRL+F and REPLACE '69thStreet010.jpg' with...

...images/xyz001.jpg
...images/xyz002.jpg
...images/xyz003.jpg

And so on until I want it to stop. Anyone here have any suggestions? Thanks a lot!

UPDATE: I should also add, I'm using Notepad++ to edit my files.

score 12 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 23 '18 at 07:19

12

Look into the Column Editor feature within Notepad++. You can do a block select on the area you want to increment and then give it a starting/ending range and you're all set.

I was in a similar situation recently. I did a little bit of regular expression search/replace to get my filenames into my "default" format with some padded "000" where I wanted my incrementing to start. After that, I used Shift+ALT to block select the 000s and used the editor to do the rest of the work.

edited Aug 23 '18 at 07:19

Pang

9,564
146
81
122

answered Oct 04 '12 at 15:20

Dillie-O

29,277
14
101
140

1

+1 For a simple and effective solution which will work for most cases – dvtoever Mar 19 '13 at 10:34
You just save me 15 minutes. Bless you! :) – testing123 Oct 23 '15 at 22:46

score 8 · Answer 2 · 2011-08-03T23:56:06.880

OK, I came up with a Notepad++ solution.
It does require you to install the Notepad++ plugin PythonScript. It is a TextPad-like incremental replace.

i.e.
Search and replace integer values within a string
replacing incrementally starting with 1 (0 is the default starting value):

In your case it would be
Search: ...images/69thStreet[0-9]+.jpg
Replace: ...images/xyz00\i(1).jpg

Install the PythonScript plugin.
Save the code below as a PythonScript and associate a shortcut (i.e. Ctrl+i) to it:
Then open your html file in Notepad++ and run the script below on your html file.
When prompted by the search replace dialogue, enter the following 2 lines:
...images/69thStreet[0-9]+.jpg
...images/xyz00\i(1).jpg

Now, all instances of
...images/69thStreet010.jpg
...images/69thStreet011.jpg
...images/69thStreet012.jpg

will become
...images/xyz001.jpg
...images/xyz002.jpg
...images/xyz003.jpg

Here is the PythonScript code

from Npp import *
import re, string

# First we'll start an undo action, then Ctrl-Z will undo the actions of the whole script
editor.beginUndoAction()

expression     = notepad.prompt("Enter the search string on the first line, followed by Ctrl+Enter, \n" +
                                "followed by the replace string on second line",
                                "Incremental Search/Replace" ,
                                "")

expressionList = re.split(r"[\n\r]+", expression)

if len(expressionList) == 2:
    foundCount = [0]

    def incrementalReplace(parmReplaceStr,parmFoundCount):
        varPatternI  = r'\\i\((?P<starting>[0-9]+)\)'
        varPatternIi = r'\\i'
        varPatternISearch = re.search(varPatternI , parmReplaceStr)

        if varPatternISearch != None:
            varFoundCount    = int(varPatternISearch.group('starting')) + parmFoundCount[0]
            varReplaceString = re.sub(varPatternI ,str(varFoundCount    ),parmReplaceStr)
        elif re.search(varPatternIi, parmReplaceStr) != None:
            varReplaceString = re.sub(varPatternIi,str(parmFoundCount[0]),parmReplaceStr)

        parmFoundCount[0] = parmFoundCount[0] + 1    
        return varReplaceString

    # Do a Python regular expression replace
    editor.searchAnchor()
    while editor.searchNext(0x00200000,expressionList[0]) != -1:
        editor.replaceSel(incrementalReplace(expressionList[1],foundCount))
        editor.lineDown() 
        editor.searchAnchor()

    # End the undo action, so Ctrl-Z will undo the above two actions
    editor.endUndoAction()

From what I remember about Python, shouldn't the last 'editor.endUndoAction()' be out-dented for it to match the startUndoAction indentation level? — Christian Karlsson, Mar 06 '14 at 10:20
Had to replace the included python27.dll with one from a freshly installed python to avoid a crash. — Jon, Sep 29 '14 at 13:52

Dykam · Answer 3 · 2009-07-09T18:33:23.237

6

If your S&R supports Regex, use this. Search term:

images/69thStreet([0-9]+).jpg

Replace term:

images/xyz$1.jpg

edited Jul 09 '09 at 18:33

answered Jul 09 '09 at 18:16

Dykam

10,190
4
27
32

He changed his numbering start. I don't know of any editors that allow you to apply arithmetic expressions to match results. – Frank Krueger Jul 09 '09 at 18:35
Dykam, This really helps a lot. Thank you so much! -K.R. – Jul 09 '09 at 18:35
If it was the solution you needed, nice I could help you out. – Dykam Jul 09 '09 at 19:05

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 14 '10 at 18:59

I just use Excel & Notepad++

Create a column of incrementing numbers in Excel. Then in the next (or previous) column, put in the line you wish to merge w/ the incrementing numbers. For instance:

file00  |  1  |  .jpg
file00  |  2  |  .jpg

Etc.

Then copy/paste the thing into Notepad++ (or use Excel's CONCATENATE function if the job is simple) and do a replacement.

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 09 '09 at 18:14

1

It's time for you to learn scripting languages. Python/Ruby/Perl can do this in a few lines by using simple regular expressions and a directory listing.

answered Jul 09 '09 at 18:14

Frank Krueger

69,552
46
163
208

willy wonka · Answer 6 · 2016-10-05T21:32:25.233

notepad++ allows you to make multi line editing. But the main problem here is to get as quick as possible all the file names from the directory where they are.

In the past I had similar challenge that I solved this way. This works almost on all win vers.

To make a list of all files in a directory create a bat file into the dir itself.

copy and paste there the following batch code

dir /b > filelist.txt

Save the file with name

makefilelist.bat

Not important the name you give it: the important thing is the file extension .bat

Double click on the bat file just saved: the batch script executes a clean dir command inside the directory in witch it is executed redirecting the output to the file filelist.txt

In less than one sec you have the output saved into the filelist.txt witch will be similar to the following:

filelist.txt
Image File Name 01.gif
Image File Name 02.gif
Image File Name 03.gif
Image File Name 04.gif
Image File Name 05.gif
Image File Name 06.gif
Image File Name 07.gif
Image File Name 08.gif
Image File Name 09.gif
Image File Name 10.gif
Image File Name 11.gif
Image File Name 12.gif
Image File Name 13.gif
Image File Name 14.gif
Image File Name 15.gif
Image File Name 16.gif
Image File Name 17.jpg
Image File Name 18.jpg
Image File Name 19.jpg
Image File Name 20.jpg
Image File Name 21.jpg
Image File Name 22.jpg
Image File Name 23.jpg
Image File Name 24.jpg
Image File Name 25.jpg
Image File Name 26.jpg
Image File Name 27.jpg
Image File Name 28.jpg
Image File Name 29.jpg
Image File Name 30.jpg
Image File Name 31.jpg
Image File Name 32.jpg
Image File Name 33.PNG
Image File Name 34.PNG
Image File Name 35.PNG
Image File Name 36.PNG
Image File Name 37.PNG
Image File Name 38.PNG
Image File Name 39.PNG
Image File Name 40.PNG
Image File Name 41.PNG
Image File Name 42.PNG
Image File Name 43.PNG
Image File Name 44.PNG
Image File Name 45.PNG
Image File Name 46.PNG
Image File Name 47.PNG
Image File Name 48.PNG
makelist.bat

Of course the names logged into the file list may vary... The script logs every file, no matters if it is in sequence or not or if its name is a random name or contains date time (time stamp) etc.: it logs everything is into the same dir in witch is executed...

Now you can open filelist.txt with notepad++: first delete the lines of the list that report the unwanted files:

makelist.bat

filelist.txt

This operation is necessary cause the script lists also itself and the filelist.txt.

Then with multi line editing tool add the tag around all lines at once, or everything else needed to built the photo gallery, even a javascript array, etc... in the end copy and paste the finished job to your image gallery file under coding. Done. Easy as drinking a glass of water: it is more difficult to explain than to do! Granted. ;-)

Improvements:

It is possible to get a list of just the jpg files by modifying the batch command like the following:

dir *.jpg /b > filelist.txt

Image File Name 17.jpg
Image File Name 18.jpg
Image File Name 19.jpg
Image File Name 20.jpg
Image File Name 21.jpg
Image File Name 22.jpg
Image File Name 23.jpg
Image File Name 24.jpg
Image File Name 25.jpg
Image File Name 26.jpg
Image File Name 27.jpg
Image File Name 28.jpg
Image File Name 29.jpg
Image File Name 30.jpg
Image File Name 31.jpg
Image File Name 32.jpg

The same with other file extensions.

score -1 · Answer 7 · answered Jul 09 '09 at 18:16

There is. Create your list of photos using a python script that looks at whatever directory you want, and renames or just lists all the file names. Then go from that to a python script that generates the HTML you need (should be very easy at this point). Then copy & paste that.

Python is very easy to use, you will be able to download it in 5 minutes & find a tutorial for reading / changing file names in another 10 minutes.

Find/Replace but Increment Value

7 Answers7

Improvements:

Linked