Regex-based matching and sustitution with nano?

regex replace nano
Daniel Standage picture Daniel Standage · Oct 12, 2011 · Viewed 19.6k times · Source

I am aware of nano's search and replace functionality, but is it capable of using regular expressions for matching and substitution (particularly substitutions that use a part of the match)? If so, can you provide some examples of the syntax used (both for matching and replacing)?

I cut my teeth on Perl-style regular expressions, but I've found that text editors will sometimes come up with their own syntax.

Answer

user151841 picture user151841 · Oct 26, 2011

My version of nano has an option to swtich to regex search with the meta character + R. In cygwin on Windows, the meta-key is alt, so I hit ctrl+\ to get into search-and-replace mode, and then alt+r to swtich to regex search.

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