replace number+string with string+number (using regex)

Question

I am using search and replace in an advanced text editor that supports regex.

Now i want to replace ##,##- with -##,## (where ##,## stands for any number)

Any help what search and replace expressions I need to use to achieve this?

E.g. \d- will only replace the - itself.

Can you post some examples of lines before and after the replacement? ("Any number" is pretty vague. I assume you do want 1- changed to -1 and do not want one- changed to -one, but there are a lot of cases where I don't know whether you would want them changed.) — ruakh
– ruakh, Commented Feb 8, 2015 at 20:59
@ruakh sorry didnt mention I am searching a collumn, so I am only dealing with digits. ( I meant to say any number of digits) bad english - no native speaker ;) in any case cristobalitos solution did the trick — TobiasH
– TobiasH, Commented Feb 8, 2015 at 22:17

cristobalito · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-08 21:03:07Z

1

Not sure what the replace semantics are on your advanced text editor but you'll likely want to use grouping to do the replacement. Something like

(\d+)(,?)(\d+)-

will match the pattern and assuming something like $1 matches the groups (the bits between the brackets), then

-$1$2$3

should suffice where $2 matches the (I'm guessing optional) ','.

answered Feb 8, 2015 at 21:03

cristobalito

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ruakh Over a year ago

Although your regex marks the , as optional, it requires at least one digit before it and at least one digit after it, with the effect that it requires at least two digits even if there is no comma. I doubt that is intentional. Also -- there's no need to have three separate capture groups. Replacing (\d+,?\d+)- with -$1 would have the same effect.

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