RegEx Pal: using regular expressions to do full search and replace, and more

Question

[There is no Help topic for RegEx Pal, so I’ll start this thread for myself or anyone else to add helpful comments about RegEx Pal.]

To open RegEx Pal, choose Tools menu ➢ Advanced ➢ RegEx Pal…

In the regular PT Find/Replace, regexes can be used only in the Find field. The RegEx Pal tool gives full regex find/replace functionality, plus the ability to count the number of matches a find string generates, or list each possible match along with the count for each unique matching string.

There are also menu items that will insert certain regex strings to save you having to remember them (such as preceded by, not followed by); and there is a menu where you can save your best-constructed regexes for later use.

Tech note: RegEx Pal is a stand-alone executable file, separate from the Paratext executable. However, it is best to run it from the Paratext menus.

See also:

• Can regular expressions be used in Paratext?
• Useful Regular Expressions
• Expressions for RegEx Pal
• Project History panic (post #3)

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Key terms for search:

• regular expression

Answer 1

I tried to open RegEx Pal using the Tools menu, and got the following error:

Screenshot 2019-06-06 01.39.35.png1311×189 36.9 KB

Notes:

• My projects folder is not the one specified in the error, but “C:\Paratext8 Projects”. Maybe this is just the way it was programmed, and the error shows the default projects folder location;
• Last time I opened RegEx Pal, this did not happen. I anon421222’t know how long ago that was;
• My “cms” folder seems to have plenty of files in it.

Solutions?

Comments

anon848905:

I would remove the “lazy programming” comment.

Done.

Yes, I was in two minds about my comment. But it was not meant in the pejorative sense, but in the sense of an oversight: that when programming you might overlook that this folder could be in a different location.

If you want, we can delete your last two messages (part of the second one) and my last two (i.e. this msg is the second of the two).

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anon848905:

Trying to determine which file is missing can be pretty tricky, but my first guess would be the “regex.py” file. I found that if I removed that from the cms folder then I get the same error message.

“regEx.py” is in my folder.

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wdavidhj:

“regEx.py” is in my folder.

In that case I would look for a copy of the cms folder on a working machine and try copying it over.

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Or try copying “C:\Paratext8 Projects\cms” to “C:\My Paratext 8 Projects\cms"

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Which version of Paratext are you ? I can’t find that error message anywhere in the latest code 8.0 or 9.0).

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anon291708:

Which version of Paratext are you ? I can’t find that error message anywhere in the latest code 8.0 or 9.0).

I see that message when I remove regex.py and run 8.0.100.81.
In 9.0 I just got an exception error.

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The message is coming from our issue tracking system - I’ll adjust the text of the 8.0 message to match what I put on the 9.0 error report anon848905 got.

John+Wickberg

Answer 2

It is not necessary to hold shift while clicking on Tools to get to RegEx Pal. The Advanced menu should appear without holding shift.

Comments

anon848905:

It is not necessary to hold shift …

Corrected.

Answer 3

wdavidhj:

Tech note: RegEx Pal is a stand-alone executable file, separate from the Paratext executable. However, it is best to run it from the Paratext menus.

Am I right that only by it from the Paratext menus, you benefit from it automatically adding points to the Project History, or will it still do that even if you run it by double-clicking the executable?

Comments

Two topics on regular expressions in Paratext are:

1. Useful Regular Expressions
2. Can regular expressions be used in Paratext?

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wdavidhj:

Am I right that only by it from the Paratext menus, you benefit from it automatically adding points to the Project History , or will it still do that even if you run it by double-clicking the executable?

The executable is no longer accessible externally with PT8/9. You must run RegEx Pal from within the Paratext program. If you are accessing an external executable file (maybe a shortcut from an earlier installation of Paratext) you are most likely accessing data in the Paratext 7 folder.

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anon421222:

Two topics …

I’ve added them as hyperlinks to the top post in the conversation, under the title “See also”.

I anon421222’t know if you were saying that there was no need for me to start this conversation, since there are already conversations on RegExes – maybe you weren’t. But, in any case, my intention was for this conversation to be about the RegEx Pal tool specifically, and there is no conversation of r Help article for this tool