Thread: I need help with writing Regular Expressions and defining Capture Groups

When you have time, there's a great app you should try called Find and Replace (FAR) that can be used to search for and replace blocks of code.
FAR can also be used to rename files. I am using it to rename a bunch of files.

With FAR you can find and replace "word by word", or you can find and replace with fully-featured Java regular expressions and capturing groups.

My problem is that I don't know a thing about Java or about writing regular expressions or capture groups. I'm 75. I know BASIC, FORTRAN, DEC PDP-8 assembly language, and just enough Arduino-style C++ to have the appearance of being competent at it.

When renaming files, FAR has a "Find" field where you can enter a regular expression containing capturing groups, and a "Replace With" field where you enter a replacement string that may refer back to the capturing groups using a backslash (\) followed by the group number.
When renaming files there is also a check box to ignore the file extension and leave it as is.

The 1,850 files I need to rename are in this general format:

Windsor_Beacon_Thu_Feb_8__1926_.jpg

These are image files of single newspaper pages from Newspapers.com
Note that the words are separated by underscores, there is no leading zero before the day of the month, and there are 2 underscores before the year and one after.

I would like to rename the files into this format:

1926-02-08 Windsor Beacon.jpg

I'm guessing that the "Find" search string could look something like this but I really don't know:

Windsor_Beacon_(\w*)_(\w*)_(\w*)__(\w*)_

I'm also guessing that the "Replace With" replacement string with capturing group numbers could look something like this:

\4-\2-\3 Windsor Beacon

This still leaves me with the problem of converting "Feb" to "02" and so forth for all the months.
If I have to rename all these files by hand it will take me nine+ hours, assuming I live that long.

Any guidance anyone can give me is greatly appreciated.

Sorry, I don't know much about Regex. Try asking the question on this forum: http://www.coderanch.com/forums

Also posted here: https://coderanch.com/t/749482/java/...fining-Capture

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--- Update ---

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🤔 Specifically, I'm looking for guidance on [insert specific challenge or question]. If you've got tips, examples, or resources to share, your expertise would be greatly appreciated! Let's unravel the mysteries of regex together. 🚀💻