Notepad++ find and replace string with a new-line

notepad

Consider the scenario where you have a specific string that you want to find-and-replace. You want to replace it with a new string that contains a newline character (or character sequence).

abc123 xyz456-blah
fsafd23 xyz456-green
89hjkf23 xyz456-red
afdsa23 xyz456-yellow
abaac123 xyz456-orange

In the scenario above, I'd like to find " xyz" and replace the space with a carriage return/newline.

The results would look like:

abc123
xyz456-blah
fsafd23
xyz456-green
89hjkf23
xyz456-red
   ︙

etc…

Question: How would you most easily achieve this using Notepad++? Are there any other tools that you'd suggest to easily perform this command?

Best Answer

Notepad++ will do just fine.

Search string: 

 xyz
Note the space in front of xyz.

Replace string: 

\r\nxyz

You will also need to set the "Search Mode" to "Extended" (lower left group box in the Replace dialog) so that Notepad++ honors escape codes.

Some background: "\r\n" is the escape code for carriage-return, the standard for new lines in Windows. Unix-style systems use simply \n (newline). Most IDEs, Notepad++ included, will understand both styles and portray them each with new lines, but core Windows utilities do not understand \n as being equivalent to \r\n, so the latter is usually the most appropriate if the file is intended to be used in Windows environments.

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