Remove everything except some word from every line

Question

I am trying to find a regex solution to keep 
 and remove other things without breaking the line order. Only some of the lines contains this pattern one or more times. I tried (?<=
)(.+)|(.+)(?=
)|^((?!
).)*$, but it only keeps one from each row, although they contain more. For example, I have something like that:

The client requires photos of a radioactive world&#xA;Reach the target planet.
The client requires photos.&#xA;&#xA;Reach the target planet.
The client requires photos of a desert world&#xA;Reach the target planet.
The client requires photos of an airless world. Reach the target planet.
The client requires photos of a strange world&#xA;&#xA;Reach the target planet&#xA;Make a quick scan.

Expecting exactly this:

&#xA;
&#xA;&#xA;
&#xA;

&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;

I would be glad if you help.

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 10 '20 at 04:20

1

You can use the following RegEx to match everything except &#xA

[^&#xA;\n]+

Demo

answered Oct 10 '20 at 04:20

Ankit

682
1
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14

It seems works on my samples. But I tried on 50k lines and it also keeps unnecessery characters. It makes this sentences: "The disturbed region must be accessed by <SPECIAL>Portal<> Speak to the inhabitants of the Space Anomaly to learn more" to "&;A&;&;&; A" – Erdem Sarp Oct 10 '20 at 04:39

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 10 '20 at 04:43

1

You could use a capturing group.

(.*?)((?:&#xA;){0,})

Details:

(.*?): Group1 - matches any characters as few as possible
((?:
){0,}): Group2 - matches 
 or not

Demo

answered Oct 10 '20 at 04:43

Thân LƯƠNG Đình

3,082
2
11
21

Strangally it doesn't work on notepad. It says n lines changed but I can't see any difference. – Erdem Sarp Oct 10 '20 at 04:54
1

Ok, I just tried on Sublime Text and it worked exactly as I want. Don't know why notepad++ gives such a result. Anyway this will do. Thank you for help. – Erdem Sarp Oct 10 '20 at 04:58

The fourth bird · Answer 3 · 2020-10-10T08:08:10.950

You can make use of SKIP FAIL to match 
 and then not consume the match.

Then match all characters except &, and when it does encounter &, assert that it is not directly followed by #xA;

Find what

&#xA;(*SKIP)(*FAIL)|[^&\r\n]+(?:&(?!#xA;)[^&\r\n]*)*

Replace with:

Leave empty

Explanation

#xA; Match literally
(*SKIP)(*FAIL)| Consume the characters that you want to avoid
[^&\r\n]+ Match 1+ times any char except & or a newline
(?: Non capture group
- &(?!#xA;) Match & if not directly followed by #xA;
- [^&\r\n]* Match 0+ times any char except & or a newline
)* Close the non capture group and repeat 0+ times

Regex demo

Remove everything except some word from every line

3 Answers3