Find lines not starting with " in Notepad++

Question

I try to verify a CSV file where we had problems with line breaks.

I want to find all lines not starting with a \".

I am trying with /!^\"

Answer 1

In Notepad++ you can use the very usefull negative lookahead

In your case you can try the following:

^(?!")

If you want to match wholes lines add .+ or .{1,7} or anything e.g.:

^(?!").*

will also match empty lines.

Explanation part

^ line start

(?!regexp) negative lookahead part: this means that if the regexp match, the result will not be shown

Answer 2

In regex, the ! does not mean negation; instead, you want to negate a character set with [^"]. The brackets, [], denote a character set and if it starts with a ^ that means "not this character set".

So, if you wanted to match things that are not double-quotes, you would use [^"]; if you don't want to match any quotes, you could use [^"'], etc.

With Notepad++, you should be able to search with the following to find lines that don't start with the " character:

^[^"]

If you want to highlight the full line, use:

^[^"].*

Answer 3

Step 1 - Match lines. Find dialog > Mark tab, you can bookmark lines that match.

Step 2 - Remove lines bookmarked OR Remove lines not bookmarked. Search > Bookmark > Remove Unmarked Lines or Remove Bookmarked lines