Altering the subtitle(.srt) format, replace ',' with ' --> '

Question

I have a bunch of videos, where the subtitle file(.srt) had it as one below.

0:00:22.540,0:00:25.440
Hello this is a test

VLC interprets it wrong, and just shows the time 0:00:25.440 on screen.

So, I planned to replace all the \d,\d to \d-->\d

I could easily search for \d,\d, but how would I replace it to \d-->\d

Input   : 0:00:22.540,0:00:25.440
Output  : 0:00:22.540 --> 0:00:25.440
Expected

I tried this

powershell -Command "(gc myFile.srt) -replace '0,0', '0 --> 0'

But I used 0,0 to search and replace? How can I make it for all digits.

Can someone help on this. I am on Windows 8.1

Answer 1

You can use look arounds as

(?<=\d),(?=\d)

• (?<=\d) Look behind. Checks if the , is presceded by a digit.
• , Matches ,
• (?=\d) Look ahead. Checks if the , is followed by a digit.

Regex Demo

Code

powershell -Command "(gc myFile.srt) -replace '(?<=\d),(?=\d)', ' --> '

---

You can also use capturing group to perform the same as

(\d),(\d)

Replace with

$1 -> $2

Regex Demo

Code

powershell -Command "(gc myFile.srt) -replace '(\d),(\d)', '$1 --> $2'

Notepad++ Demo: