Find an id string that is NOT 36 characters long or contains invalid characters?

CraigBryan · Jan 09, 2014#12014-01-09T09:42+00:00

Hi,

I am trying to validate some XML files that contain many strings like this:

<Phrase id="e76a7a36-27cb-4d4a-abbf-a17e009a3b4f"

The ID between the quotes should always be 36 characters long, but I had an instance recently where one of them was longer.

What I would like to do is run a search to find any Phrase ID that is not 36 characters.

I can find 36 characters easily enough: <Phrase id=".{36}"

But how do I say More or Less than 36?

I'm using UltraEdit 16.10.0.1028 and my preferred regex engine is Perl (but I'm happy to accept a solution in any engine).

... or better still:
Is it possible to search for NOT 36 characters but all characters must be valid hex or dashes?

Thanks

Mofi · Jan 09, 2014#22014-01-09T10:55+00:00

It looks like search string <Phrase id="(?:[^"]{0,35}|[^"]{37,}|[0-9a-f\-]*?[^"0-9a-f\-].*?)" is what you need, a non marking OR expression.

[^"]{0,35} ... matches identifier strings with less than 36 characters.
[^"]{37,} ... matches identifier strings with more than 36 characters.
[0-9a-f\-]*?[^"0-9a-f\-].*? ... matches identifier strings with 36 characters, but at least one character is whether a hexadecimal character nor a hyphen.

CraigBryan · Jan 09, 2014#32014-01-09T11:06+00:00

That's perfect!
Thanks very much