Regex pattern search in TextPad fails, works in Visual Studio

Question

I'm trying to use TextPad to search for a regular expression in several files. I have a simple pattern but it doesn't work in TextPad. It works fine in Visual Studio.

Anyone have any ideas?

I'm searching for:

hosted.mysite.com or host.mysite.com

using the pattern:

(hosted|host)\.mysite\.com

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 14 '09 at 20:18

5

Use something like this

\(hosted\|host\).mysite.com

answered Oct 14 '09 at 20:18

BobBrez

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note: if you have the Use POSIX regular expression syntax preference set in the Editor preference panel, you shouldn't escape the parens or the pipe. – akf Oct 14 '09 at 20:41
Thanks for the heads up on that. – BobBrez Oct 14 '09 at 22:13

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 14 '09 at 20:15

3

try this:

 host\(ed\)?\.mysite\.com

answered Oct 14 '09 at 20:15

akf

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thanks for the quick reply. The host names are actually two different words entirely though...should've used a different example :/ something like: somehost.mysite.com and bling.mysite.com in my original post I did have escape slashes before my dots but they got stripped. – Burrito Oct 14 '09 at 20:19
+1. Looking at http://www.textpad.com/support/tips/ it seems that many regex meta characters in TextPad need to be escaped in able to work properly. Odd. @OP, the above should work, and your own solution **should** work when you escape the logical OR as well: `\(hosted\|host\)\.mysite\.com` (untested!) – Bart Kiers Oct 14 '09 at 20:22
no dice. and yes that is very weird that you'd need to escape the meta chars...shouldn't it look for them literally then? Ohwell a topic for another time. But regardless, your solution still isn't flying. Any other ideas? I found this resource: http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache%3AIN-HNpeNlG8J%3Awww-user.uni-bremen.de%2F~anatol%2Fdocs%2Fcorp_regex.pdf+Textpad+regex&hl=en&gl=ca&sig=AFQjCNGrbwIzN6j88cay-uq47TAojnyX1w&pli=1 – Burrito Oct 14 '09 at 20:28
It seems TextPad does not support the optional `?` quantifier. – Bart Kiers Oct 14 '09 at 20:36
@Burrito: if you have the `Use POSIX regular expression syntax preference` set in the Editor preference panel, you shouldn't escape the parens. – akf Oct 14 '09 at 20:40
...don't escape the pipe in the use POSIX RE syntax case either. – akf Oct 14 '09 at 20:42

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 14 '09 at 20:15

2

Not every text editor uses the same regex/conventions. A regex you may get to work in Visual Studio won't necessarily work in Eclipse, Netbeans, or some other IDE or text editor.

answered Oct 14 '09 at 20:15

Geo

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I'd vote +1, but this doesn't answer the question, does it? :) Anyway, good comment. – Seb Oct 14 '09 at 20:26

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 14 '09 at 20:25

1

In Textpad you need to escape some characters, such as parenthesis and pipes.

In your case, what you need is this:

\(hosted\|host\)\.mysite\.com

Note: you need to escape dots as well.

answered Oct 14 '09 at 20:25

Seb

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No idea, dude. I tested this before posting and it works in my box :( – Seb Oct 15 '09 at 22:39

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 28 '11 at 10:53

Textpad's POSIX regexes are good, but even better results could be achieved by installing the Win GNU util grep and adding a cmd /c "Prompt for parameters " , "Capture output" command: thus you could have full Find in files with even Perl regexes: grep -nhPr "CoolRegexToSearchWith" C:\MyDir\ToSearchRecursivly

Regex pattern search in TextPad fails, works in Visual Studio

5 Answers5