Replace a string using Notepad++ and regex

Question

I have strings like this:

<img src="http://www.example.com/app_res/emoji/1F60A.png" /><img src="http://www.example.com/app_res/emoji/1F389.png" />
<img src="http://www.example.com/app_res/emoji/1F61E.png" /><img src="http://www.example.com/app_res/emoji/1F339.png" />

I want them to be like this:

😊 🎉
😞 🌹

In Notepad++, I tried this:

Find what: ^\s*<img src="http://www.example.com/app_res/emoji/(1F.*).png" />

Replace with: &#x\1;

The result is not as expected:

&#x1F60A.png" /><img src="http://www.example.com/app_res/emoji/1F389;

How to best isolate the regular expression?

Any help is welcome ! Thank you

Answer 1

You're using the unspecific . together with the greedy star * . Don't do that here, as this tends to overshoot the target.

Be more specific.

The file name (in your case) does not contain dot's. Let's use "anything except a dot" ( [^.]* ) instead of "anything" ( .* ):

^\s*<img src="http://www.example.com/app_res/emoji/(1F[^.]*).png" />

Answer 2

You may try the following find and replace, in regex mode:

Find:    <img src=".*?/([A-Z0-9]+\.\w+"\s*/><img src=".*?/([A-Z0-9]+\.\w+"\s*/>
Replace: &#x$1; &#x$2;

Here is a working regex demo .

Answer 3

Try

Find: ^<.*?/(1\w+).*?/(1\w+).* Replace: &#x$1; &#x$2; &#x$1; &#x$2;