GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 103751
RFE: regular expressions in gedit's search and replace
Last modified: 2013-08-19 14:20:55 UTC
Gedit: Search and Replace should support regular expressions.
This feature should be implemented as a plugin.
I was just about to say it : I wish I could use regexp that feature too. Great job though.
The day gedit gets regexps, lot of Gnome-based programmers and power users, including myself, will abandon estetically unsatisfactory but currently more powerful alternatives such as gvim and nedit. Keep this to-do high on the priority list! And thank you for the program!
Good news! Daniel d'Andrada has implemented regualr expression search plugin. See http://danieldandrada.blogspot.com/ Could it be added to standard plugins pack?
I think gedit is great but I agree with the others. Why not include a regex search option? It would be useful for many people.
missing regular expressions in gedit is almost the only reason I must use gvim regularly, I feel RE are "basic" feature of text editor and one of the best of unix traditions.. unfortunately there is no usable *simple* text editor in gnome with RE search-and-replace feature.. so therefore gnome is still not an "easy desktop", when you are supposed to use vim too often ;)
Good points Roman. I recently migrated from Windows where my primary editors were TextPad and EditPad. Both of these programs include built-in regex search, so naturally I assumed gedit would too. I feel like gedit is a great editor, it just needs this basic feature to be complete. Anyway, I ended up installing Daniel d'Andrada's plug-in and it works good. I just wish I didn't have to open up a separate dialog to use it :)
there are several points to do if starting from Daniel d'Andrada's plug-in http://danieldandrada.blogspot.com/2006/05/regex-searches-in-gedit.html * a regex-replace dialog * integrate it with gedit standard search- and replace- dialogs or at least start it from Search menu instead of Tools menu * ship it with standard gedit plugins package (it can be disabled by default to not confuse new users)
gedit is a great program and would rather use it than any crap for windows. The only thing that it needs to be perfect is regular expression support. So... Please log my vote for regex in search and replace.
I agree, it needs to be integrated with the standard s/r or under the same menu. Otherwise the user would have to look for it and may even forget it is available.
There is a nice, simple regex search/replace plugin here: http://halfhourhacks.blogspot.com/2008/03/gedit-regular-expression-plugin.html However, I agree that this needs to be a standard feature, or at least appear in the standard dialog. It should be as simple as adding a checkbox in the Search/Replace dialogs that says "Use Regular Expressions". Can this be done as a plugin? (Adding a checkbox to existing dialogs and injecting search/replace logic)
I don't know, but ultimately it should not be a plugin, it should be part of the program because it is so fundamental.
I completely agree. The other reason is that I didn't see a regex plugin which integrates into standard gedit's search and replace dialogs. All plugins implement separate dialogs. The right way IMHO is to have a simple checkbox "Use regular expresions" in standard dialogs.
Regular expressions is really a basic feature. Standalone plug-ins work, but this is a totally clumsy way.
It's totally unacceptable to require users to use piece of software from a RANDOM GUY'S BLOG post from 2008 to provide basic editor functionality. Not saying that is feature that should be built-in, but it's NOT even PACKAGED ANYWHERE! User will think he need a piece of KDE shit Kate or text mode nano or worse to do a simple anchored text search or like!
Happy New Year to you too!
So today came to my mind an idea: 1) Finish the split of the gtksourceview engine 2) Provide to add a way programatically to add some text in the analyzer to highlight it 3) Create a search engine that it is the one that will iterate over the text and highlight the text. 4) Stop using gtktextiter for searching 5) Use only this GRegex based engine for everything as it would be non blocking and it would give us also regex support. ideas about this?
Do the plugins linked to above not work in gedit 3 anymore?
you can use the commander plugin that it works with gedit 3.
It is GUI editor and should have proper options in GUI dialog, with syntax help and similar stuff. Command lines which add command lines and or clunky dialog boxes without any documentation whatsoever are inappropriate.
(In reply to comment #19) > you can use the commander plugin that it works with gedit 3. Is there any documentation on how to use this thing? I can't find any with Google.
Regex search has landed gedit. There are maybe some rough edges. Some testing would be appreciated. For now the regex errors are not reported, but it will hopefully be done for this release.