Regex to delete lines containing exact number of semicolons, Notepad++

Question

Example:

a ; user ; name ; pass ; 123 ;
b ; login ; name ; password ; def;
c ; 
d ;
e ; email ; s@d.com ; pass ; 789 ;

lines 1,2,5 have 5 semicolons and lines 3,4 have 1 semicolon I want line 3 and 4 deleted.

result:

a ; user ; name ; pass ; 123 ;
b ; login ; name ; password ; def;
e ; email ; s@d.com ; pass ; 789 ;

Have you tried putting regex together yet? When I try to work out a regex solution, I always pop it into https://regex101.com/ until I figure it out — Chris, Jan 05 '15 at 17:47
Very similar question to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/863125/regular-expression-to-count-number-of-commas-in-a-string — titaniumdecoy, Jan 05 '15 at 17:52

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 05 '15 at 17:57

1

Use the following pattern in the regex matching the line to be replaced:

^[^;]*;[^;]*$

[^;] matches any character except the semi-colon.

The characters ^ and $ at the beginning and the end mark the start and the end of the line respectively.

edited Jan 05 '15 at 17:57

Jeremy W

answered Jan 05 '15 at 17:48

M A

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 05 '15 at 17:48

1

You can use this regex for deletion:

^[^;]*; *$

answered Jan 05 '15 at 17:48

anubhava

2 Answers2