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Some useful regex functions
You can use search and replace with regex in the visual editor, just tap Ctrl+f on your keyboard, then click on the icon representing (.*) — that's the regex (regular expression) function, which will interpret your search string as regex.
Unfortunately you can't use regex in the replace function but anyway, here are some cool regex functions you can use to help you on pages. Just copy the "regex code" row into the search bar (yes it looks like nothing, that's normal)
| Regex code | What it does | Use for |
|---|---|---|
\[(\d+)\]
|
Detects references like [12] | Transform plain text references into formatted MediaWiki references (ctrl+shift+k to add a reference). Will probably leave behind extra spaces so run the next function. |
\s{2,}
|
Detect two spaces or more | Search for this code, add a space in the replace field, then press replace all and it will correct all possible extra spaces to just one. |
\s(?=[.,;:!?)%])
|
Remove space before punctuation | Removes a space before punctuation, like . or ? or ;
be careful before replacing all, you should look through instances one by one. |
\s-{1,2}|\s\u2013
|
Detects a hyphen or two OR an en dash after a space | This can indicate incorrect use of an em dash —
Will detect either - or --, which are sometimes incorrectly used. Replace all with em dash (with a space before but not after) Will also detect the en dash (–), which should also be replaced. |
(?<!\s)\d+\s*[.\-\)]
|
Detects improperly formatted ordered lists (e.g. 1), 2), etc) | We should use mediawiki lists instead of plain text. This detects such a case. Use only to find it, then apply the list format manually. |
(?<![.!?])\n
|
Detects superfluous line breaks | When importing from PDF, you will usually have extra line breaks that shouldn't be here. This code detects them (new lines preceded by period, exclamation mark or question mark). Replace with an empty space.
Note: detecting line breaks doesn't work in MediaWiki. Import your text to say Google Docs, use their search function, then import result to ProleWiki. You still have to go through the text manually but it saves a lot of time and cramps. |