Regex - How to search for singular or plural version of word [duplicate]

Answer 1

For simple plurals, use this:

test(?=s| |$)

For more complex plurals, you're in trouble using regex. For example, this regex

part(y|i)(?=es | )

will return "party" or "parti", but what you do with that I'm not sure

Answer 2

Ok I've found a solution:

([a-zA-Z]+?)(s\b|\b)

Works as desired, then you can simply use the first match as the unpluralized version of the word.

Thanks @Jahroy for helping me find it. I added this as answer for future surfers who just want a solution but please check out Jahroy's comment for more in depth information.

Answer 3

Here's how you can do it with vi or sed:

s/\([A-Za-z]\)[sS]$/\1

That replaces a bunch of letters that end with S with everything but the last letter.

NOTE:

The escape chars (backslashes before the parens) might be different in different contexts.

ALSO:

The \1 (which means the first pattern) may also vary depending on context.

ALSO:

This will only work if your word is the only word on the line.

If your table name is one of many words on the line, you could probably replace the $ (which stands for the end of the line) with a wildcard that represents whitespace or a word boundary (these differ based on context).