Notepad++ wildcard

Question

how to find and replace all characters after the main domain (including the "/" character) using a wild card?

For example, i have the following 4 rows:

intersport-schaeftlmaier.de/
weymouthhondapowersports.com/Default.asp
rtbstream.com/click?data=RG1kUFJQQUYw
top-casino-sites.com/

In excel I would simply use the following: Find this /* Replace with this

The results will look like this:

intersport-schaeftlmaier.de
weymouthhondapowersports.com
rtbstream.com
top-casino-sites.com

So, how to do that with notepad++ ?

Thanks, Ziv

Answer 1

In the Find and Replace dialog:

• under Search Mode select Regular Expression
• set Find What to /.*$
• leave Replace With empty

This is replace any slash and all the text after it until the end of line with nothing. It uses a regular expression so it looks convoluted but it is well worth learning as regular expressions are insanely useful for lots of things.

Basically:

• / isn't a special character so it just matches a /
• . is a wildcard that matches a single character. To match a literal . use \.
• * is a wildcard that matches zero of more of the preceding character. So a* would match zero or more a and .* would match zero of more of any character.
• $ matches the end of a line. To match a literal $ use \$

A few other special characters:

• \ is the escape character - use it to turn special characters into normal characters. Yo match a literal \ use \\
• + is a wildcard that matches one of more of the preceding character. So a+ would match one or more a and .+ would match one of more of any character.
• ^ matches the start of a line. To match a literal ^ use \^
• ( and ) make a match group. To match literal ( or ) use \( and \)

And there are more special characters including [, ], { and } along with others that I won't mention.

Answer 2

Use Regular Expression in Replace and then use this:

/.*

Untick the . matches newline and ofc replace it with nothing ;)