find and replacenotepadtags
[Notepad++ Question]
How do I use find-and-replace to replace the attribute of a series of tags using expression?
Case scenario:
Let's say I have a couple of lines of something like this:
<li><a title="Bla bla" href=
"http://www.url.com/etc">Text</a></li>
And I want to replace them with this:
<li><a title="Bla bla" href="">Text</a></li>
Note the new line and double tabs on the original.
href="#"Menu "Search" > "Replace" (or Ctrl + H)
Set "Find what" to <a .*?href="#">(.*?)</a>
Set "Replace with" to \1
Enable "Regular expression"
Click "Replace All"
Before:
<a href="#">leave this text</a>
<a class="" id="" href="#">leave this text too</a>
<a href="http://......">Dont remove this tag!</a>
After:
leave this text
leave this text too
<a href="http://......">Dont remove this tag!</a>
As pointed out by AFH in a comment, there is a better regular expression that will catch expression that were not included in the sample data.
Set "Find what" to <a .*?href="#" .*?>(.*?)</a>
This will match lines where there are clauses after the href="#" (and before the first matching >).
Note:
It will fail to work correctly if there are any >s in the value field of a subsequent clause (before the > matching <a)
Best Answer
Speaking specifically about the newline and double-tabs, using the Extended Searched Mode find:
and replace with:
And assuming you are wanting to remove the URL from the href, leaving a blank reference, you'll want to use the Regular expression Search Mode to find:
and replace with: