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• • June 7, 2017 at 2:04 am #95135
    Tabrez Ahmad

    Member

    Hi all

    I’ve a GREP question which I can’t find the answer to.

    Basically, I’ve got a 45 page document filled with various instances of 4 digit numbers, for example, 5137, 5138, 5139 and so on.

    All I need to do is add the letters PJ before each of these instances.

    What GREP expression would I use?

    Thanks in advance!

    Tabrez :)

  • June 7, 2017 at 2:12 am #95138
    Kai Rübsamen

    Member

    Hi,

    try:

    Find what: \d{4}
    Change to: PJ$0

    Kai

  • June 7, 2017 at 2:26 am #95139
    Tabrez Ahmad

    Member

    Can I say that I love you Kai?

    Thanks so much!

    If it’s not too much trouble, to help me understand for future ref, how DID that work?

    Thanks again!

    Tabrez

  • June 7, 2017 at 2:32 am #95140
    Kai Rübsamen

    Member

    \d is a so called wildcard-metacharacter and will find all digits [0-9]. To find one or 50 you could use \d+. The plus-symbol is the metacharacter for one or more times. But you ordered a specific amount of digits: 4 > Therefore I use \d{4}. Because this will find also 4 digits in a 6 digits number, I use a so called anchor: (for word boundary).

    \d{4}

    Find the start of a number, 4 digits, end of a number. You can then insert everything with $0 in the change to field.

    Kai

  • June 7, 2017 at 2:40 am #95141
    Masood Ahmad

    Participant

    Let me try to explain on behalf of Kai.

    The Find What :

    stands for Word Boundary i.e it will not search for string that is part of a long string. for example it will not search for 5 digit number or “xyz1234”. In your case the numbers are in group of 4.
    \d stands for any Digit
    {4} stands for the length of the previous GREP Wildcard which is \d. The 4 digits numbers can also be expressed as \d\d\d\d
    stands for Word Boundary

    The Change to:

    PJ stands for the replacement character as per your choice.
    $0 stands for Find Text i.e. replace what is being find through the Find What expression.

    Hope that helps.

  • June 7, 2017 at 4:43 am #95145
    Tabrez Ahmad

    Member

    Thanks to both of you, massively helpful!

    All the best from sunny London! :)

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