Notepad++ find and replace string with a new-line

Consider the scenario where you have a specific string that you want to find-and-replace. You want to replace it with a new string that contains a newline character (or character sequence).

abc123 xyz456-blah fsafd23 xyz456-green 89hjkf23 xyz456-red afdsa23 xyz456-yellow abaac123 xyz456-orange 

In the scenario above, I'd like to find " xyz" and replace the space with a carriage return/newline.

The results would look like:

abc123 xyz456-blah fsafd23 xyz456-green 89hjkf23 xyz456-red ︙ 

etc...

Question: How would you most easily achieve this using Notepad++? Are there any other tools that you'd suggest to easily perform this command?

5 Answers

Notepad++ will do just fine.

Search string:

 xyz

Note the space in front of xyz.

Replace string:

\r\nxyz

You will also need to set the "Search Mode" to "Extended" (lower left group box in the Replace dialog) so that Notepad++ honors escape codes.

Some background: "\r\n" is the escape code for carriage-return, the standard for new lines in Windows. Unix-style systems use simply \n (newline). Most IDEs, Notepad++ included, will understand both styles and portray them each with new lines, but core Windows utilities do not understand \n as being equivalent to \r\n, so the latter is usually the most appropriate if the file is intended to be used in Windows environments.

In Notepad++, it's very easy...

• Find: xyz
• Replace with: \n

• Search Mode: Extended (\n, \t, etc.)

The trick is to set the search mode.

I cheat a bit when S&Ring characters that I can't type directly into the text fields (e.g. tabs and newlines). Find somewhere in the document which already has that character, then copy it, and paste it into the replace field.

So in your example, start at the very start of one line, click, drag to the very end of the preceeding line, copy that, and paste it into the Replace dialog.

In the "Replace" dialog, make sure that under Search Mode you have "Extended" selected. Then type in the find box enter "xyz" and replace with "\n".

For Notepad++, change the search mode to Extended then in the Replace with field use \n.