Thanks Jean for the comprehensive explanation. It is very helpful.
On Saturday, 31 July 2021 at 1:14:01 pm UTC-4 jj wrote:
> Hi Howard,
>
> Here is a commented version of your regular expression.
>
> (?x) (?# Allow whitespace and comments.
> )
> ( (?# Opening of capture 1.
> )
> . (?# Any single character.
> )
> ) (?# Closing of capture 1.
> )
> (?! (?# Opening negative lookahead assertion.
> )
> [^(]* (?# Zero or more characters that are not a opening
> parenthesis. )
> \) (?# A closing parenthesis.
> )
> ) (?# Closing negative lookahead assertion.
> )
>
> (?!...) is a Negative lookahead assertion.
> It basically says: find occurrences of 'this' that are not followed by
> 'that' but don't include the 'not that' in the match –– hence the
> 'lookahead'.
>
> For a detailed explanation check the *excellent* grep documentation in *menu
> Help > BBEdit Help > Grep Reference* link.
>
> So that says:
> "Any single character that is not followed by zero or more characters that
> are not the opening parenthesis, followed by a closing parenthesis."
>
> The double negation makes it difficult to fathom.
>
> The negative lookahead assertion says: skip any match that is followed by
> '...)' where ... are zero of more not '('.
> The digits of the first line are not followed by '...)' -> match.
> The first character of the second line '(' is followed by '10)' -> skip
> The second character of the second line '1' is followed by '0)' -> skip
> The third character of the second line '0' is followed by ')' -> skip
> The fourth character of the second line ')' is not followed by '...)' ->
> match
> ...
>
> A simpler regular expression that will give the same result (and probably
> be more performant) is:
>
> (\([^\)]*\)|\d)
>
> "Match any parentheses block or any single digits outside of parentheses
> blocks."
>
> HTH
>
> Jean Jourdain
>
>
> On Saturday, July 31, 2021 at 6:52:48 PM UTC+2 TJ Luoma wrote:
>
>>
>> Try pasting it into https://regexr.com
>>
>> That's what I usually use to translate regex into English :-)
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 31, 2021 at 10:20 AM Howard <leadwi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Can someone explain how the REGEX code below works?
>>> *(.)(?![^(]*\))*
>>>
>>> I know it looks for digits, including two-digit numbers in parentheses,
>>> and extracts them and inserts a space after each one, but I do not know how
>>> the code starting with *(?* works.
>>>
>>> Here is sample data for it:
>>> 010000000
>>> (10)1140006x
>>> 002200010
>>> 00000(11)01x
>>> 311200
>>>
>>> Here is output:
>>> 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
>>> (10) 1 1 4 0 0 0 6 x
>>> 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 1 0
>>> 0 0 0 0 0 (11) 0 1 x
>>> 3 1 1 2 0 0
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> This is the BBEdit Talk public discussion group. If you have a feature
>>> request or need technical support, please email "sup...@barebones.com"
>>> rather than posting here. Follow @bbedit on Twitter: <
>>> https://twitter.com/bbedit>
>>> ---
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>> Groups "BBEdit Talk" group.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>>> an email to bbedit+un...@googlegroups.com.
>>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/aa2c7738-44c7-4d75-b64e-7cf2655ffb4an%40googlegroups.com
>>>
>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/aa2c7738-44c7-4d75-b64e-7cf2655ffb4an%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
>>> .
>>>
>>
--
This is the BBEdit Talk public discussion group. If you have a feature request
or need technical support, please email "supp...@barebones.com" rather than
posting here. Follow @bbedit on Twitter: <https://twitter.com/bbedit>
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"BBEdit Talk" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to bbedit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bbedit/d2a77988-83d0-4080-a085-bd4b463fb465n%40googlegroups.com.
