Question

I am using notepad++ and RegEx.

I have a SRT file and I want to add three question marks “???” whenever the first the three characters of a line are also three questions marks “???”. However, I only wish to do this if the next line is blank. However, if the next line is not blank then I would like to add the ??? after the end of that next line.

For example this is that I have.

14
01:04:21,406 --> 01:04:24,887
??? Face I'd never see again

15
01:04:24,885 --> 01:04:27,638
??? It's a shame to awake
in a world of pain

Now I would like to add the ??? like this to both the lines.

14
01:04:21,406 --> 01:04:24,887
??? Face I'd never see again ???

15
01:04:24,885 --> 01:04:27,638
??? It's a shame to awake
in a world of pain ???

Answer 1

Notepad++ used to have problems with multiline matches, but the current releases are said to support Perl-style regexes much better. I don’t have Notepad++ installed, but if its regex engine works correctly, then the following regex should solve your problem:

Search for (?s)^(\?{3}.*?(?=\r?\n\r?\n|\z)) and replace with \1???.

Explanation:

(?s)         # Turn on dot-matches-all mode
^            # Match start of line
(            # Match and capture (group 1)
 \?{3}       # Three question marks
 .*?         # Any number of characters, as few as possible
 (?=         # until the following regex can be matched at the current position:
  \r?\n\r?\n #  Either two newlines in a row
 |           # or
  \z         #  the end of the file
 )           # End of lookahead assertion
)            # End of capturing group 1