Regex Query to find the first tab before EOL

Question

I have a line that looks like this:

$/Reporting/MSReportin gServices/Alle gro/Ex eXYZ.All egro.Ss rs:

The spaces are tabs, so here is what it actually looks like

$/Reporting/MSReportin gServices/Alle{TAB}gro/Ex{TAB}eXYZ.All{TAB}egro.Ss{TAB}rs:

I have to find the first tab in each line that starts with a $ sign.

How do I do this using RegEx?

Find the first tab? Well, the first one **is** just a tab... :) Perhaps you want to find the index of the first tab? Or everything between `$` and the first tab? — Bart Kiers, Sep 13 '10 at 14:09
@Bart K. I want to find the index of the first tab. I am using this in Editplus to edit a rather large file and remove tabs from only lines that start with a $ sign. — Raj More, Sep 13 '10 at 16:48

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 13 '10 at 14:11

2

^\$(.*?)\t

Captures the text before the first tab. The length of the captured text plus one (for the dollar) tells you the index of the tab.

answered Sep 13 '10 at 14:11

Timwi

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 13 '10 at 14:15

1

I think this expression should do it: ^\$(/\w+/\w+)\t

answered Sep 13 '10 at 14:15

splash

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score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 13 '10 at 15:18

Here is a way to retrieve the first tab and replace it :

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $s = qq!\$/Reporting/MSReportin\tgServices/Alle\tgro/Ex\teXYZ.All\tegro.Ss\trs:!;
$s =~ s/^(\$[^\t]*?)\t/$1HERE_IS_THE_FIRST_TAB/;
print '$1 = ',$1,"\n";
print '$s = ',$s,"\n";

Output:

$1 = $/Reporting/MSReportin
$s = $/Reporting/MSReportinHERE_IS_THE_FIRST_TABgServices/Alle  gro/Ex  eXYZ.All    egro.Ss rs:

But you have to be more specific about what's the meaning of find the first tab

Regex Query to find the first tab before EOL

3 Answers3