Post replace

[MrC]

I am using Post Replace addon by Kier to replace a string, say "xyz", with a space. Should I put " " (space - without the quotation marks) in the Replacement String box? If not, do I need to put some special character, which represents the space character, in the box? And what should the special character be?

Thanks.

 

[Jake Bunce]

For simple replacements you can use a direct query on the database:

UPDATE xf_post
SET message = REPLACE(message, 'xyz', ' ');

You don't need Kier's addon for this simple replacement.

 

[MrC]

Sorry . My example was over simplified. To be precise, I am trying to remove the tag lines created by the Double Post addon and replace each tag line by a space. The tag lines have the following format:

[DOUBLEPOST=1352988138][/DOUBLEPOST] (where the number is the posted date)

So I used:

Quick Find: [DOUBLEPOST
 
Regular Expression: #\[DOUBLEPOST=\d+\]\[/DOUBLEPOST\]#siU
 
Replacement String: " " (without the quotation marks)

I tested the above, it seemed to find all the tag lines created by Double Post, but the Replacement String boxes were empty (no space characters). So I am guessing I did not do it correctly.

 

[Jake Bunce]

It's correct. I tested it.

A space character replacement will show as "empty". It only shows the replacement for the actual matched text, not the entire post.

 

[MrC]

It's correct. I tested it.

A space character replacement will show as "empty". It only shows the replacement for the actual matched text, not the entire post.

I created a simple text for testing: "helloxyzkJake Bunce". And I did the following with Post Replace

Quick Find: xyzk
 
Regular Expression: #xyzk#
Replacement String: " " (without the quotation marks)

The text, after the replacement, became "helloJake Bunce". But it should be "hello Jake Bunce".

 

[Jake Bunce]

Oh.

You could replace it with some non-empty string and then run a replacement query on that string.

 

[MrC]

Yeah, that trick worked. I replaced "xyzk" with "xyzk xyzk" and then removed "xyzk". The space in "xyzk xyzk" stayed!