Notepad++ incrementally replace

Lets say I want to have a 10 rows of data but I want a value to increment for each row or piece of data. How do I increment that value?

For example....If I have these rows, is there a regex way of replacing the id values to increment?

<row id="1" />
<row id="1" />
<row id="1" />
<row id="1" />
<row id="1" />

--- Here is what I would like it to look like... (if the first row's id goes up one thats ok)

<row id="1" />
<row id="2" />
<row id="3" />
<row id="4" />
<row id="5" />

Not sure about regex, but there is a way for you to do this in Notepad++, although it isn't very flexible.

In the example that you gave, hold Alt and select the column of numbers that you wish to change. Then go to Edit->Column Editor and select the Number to Insert radio button in the window that appears. Then specify your initial number and increment, and hit OK. It should write out the incremented numbers.

Note: this also works with the Multi-editing feature (selecting several locations while maintaining Ctrl key pressed).

This is, however, not anywhere near the flexibility that most people would find useful. Notepad++ is great, but if you want a truly powerful editor that can do things like this with ease, I'd say use Vim.

I was looking for the same feature today but couldn't do this in Notepad++. However, we have TextPad to our rescue. It worked for me.

In TextPad's replace dialog, turn on regex; then you could try replacing

<row id="1"/>

by

<row id="\i"/>

Have a look at this link for further amazing replace features of TextPad - http://sublimetext.userecho.com/topic/106519-generate-a-sequence-of-numbers-increment-replace/

i had the same problem with more than 250 lines and here is how i did it:

for example :

<row id="1" />
<row id="1" />
<row id="1" />
<row id="1" />
<row id="1" />

you put the cursor just after the "1" and you click on alt + shift and start descending with down arrow until your reach the bottom line now you see a group of selections click on erase to erase the number 1 on each line simultaneously and go to Edit -> Column Editor and select Number to Insert then put 1 in initial number field and 1 in incremented by field and check zero numbers and click ok

Congratulations you did it :)

Since there are limited real answers I'll share this workaround. For really simple cases like your example you do it backwards...

From this

1
2
3
4
5

Replace \r\n with " />\r\n<row id=" and you'll get 90% of the way there

1" />
<row id="2" />
<row id="3" />
<row id="4" />
<row id="5

Or is a similar fashion you can hack about data with excel/spreadsheet. Just split your original data into columns and manipulate values as you require.

|   <row id="   |   1   |   " />    |
|   <row id="   |   1   |   " />    |
|   <row id="   |   1   |   " />    |
|   <row id="   |   1   |   " />    |
|   <row id="   |   1   |   " />    |

Obvious stuff but it may help someone doing the odd one-off hack job to save a few key strokes.

http://docs.notepad-plus-plus.org/index.php/Inserting_Variable_Text

Notepad++ comes equipped with a Edit -> Column "Alt+C" Editor which can work on a rectangular selection in two different ways: Coledit.png inserting some fixed text on every line including and following the current line, at the column of the insertion point (aka caret). Initially selected text is left untouched. As the picture illustrates, a linear series of numbers can be inserted in the same manner. The starting value and increment are to be provided. Left padding with zeroes is an option, and the number may be entered in base 2, 8, 10 or 16 - this is how the computed values will be displayed too, padding being based on the largest.