Problem:

Lets say that you have a large amount of data that you need to sort through and make changes to only certain ones. Obviously simple search will allow you to find each entry and then manually change them but there is a much better method... round of applause and in step Regular Expressions.

Solution:

Regular Expressions allow you to do intelligent search and replace using customizable pattern matching. Most people will be familiar with regular expressions through Grep in the linux CLI (Command Line Interface) but we are just going to look at regular expressions in Dreamweaver and the free Notepad ++ Lets look at an example:

1. some random text

now lets say that you wanted the 1. in bold - well that easy you do a search for: 1. and replace with :<b>1.</b> or you could simply type it in.
Ok so far but now lets make our problem a little more complex.

1. some random text
2. some random text
3. some random text
4. some random text
...................
8. some random text


now lets say that you wanted the all the numbers at the start of the line bold. The old search and replace method becomes useless because you will be running a search per line. what you need is a regular expression.

Example:

Now when you search look for ([0-9]). and replace with <b>$1.</b> the ouput will then be:

1. some random text
2. some random text
3. some random text
4. some random text
..........................
8. some random text


This is will work fine in Dream weaver but if you want it to work in Notepad ++ you will need to use \1 instead of $1.

All the best, David Batey.

Back | Order