Advanced Match provides more control over your find-and-replace tasks in Lucid by supporting regular expression patterns. Instead of searching for an exact word, you can use special symbols to find patterns.
Think of it like a secret code to help you find exactly what you are looking for.
Available expressions
| Symbol | What it finds | Example |
^ | (Start): The word must be at the very beginning. | ^lemon finds lemonade, but not pink lemonade. |
$ | (End): The word must be at the very end. | ade$ finds lemonade, but not lemonade soda. |
. | Any single character (letter, number, or space). | b.g finds bag, beg, and bug. |
\d | Any number (digit). | \d\d finds 12 or 99. |
\D | Anything that is NOT a number. | \D finds A, !, or a space. |
\w | Any letter or number. | \w\w\w finds abc or 123. |
\W | Anything NOT a letter or number. | \W finds ? or &. |
\s | A space. | a\sb finds a b. |
\S | Anything NOT a space. | \S finds X or 7. |
* | (Zero or more): The character can be missing or there many times. | ab*c finds ac, abc, and abbbc. |
+ | (One or more): The character must be there at least once. | ab+c finds abc, but not ac. |
? | (Zero or one): The character is optional. | ab?c finds ac or abc. |
💡 Pro Tips
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Searching for symbols: If you want to search for an actual
?,*,^, or$without using the "code" version, put a backslash in front of it:\?or\*. -
Combining codes: You can string symbols together to find complex patterns.
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\d+-\w+finds a number, then a dash, then a word (like 12-apple). Note: This won't work if the dash or the word is missing.
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Watch the spaces: If your code doesn't include a space symbol (
\s), the search will look for characters that are touching.-
Example:
abc\d\d\dfinds abc123, but it will not find abc 123 because of the hidden space.
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Be strict with starts and ends: Use
^and$to be very specific.-
^\d+only finds numbers if they are the very first thing in the text. -
\d+$only finds numbers if they are the very last thing in the text.
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