Rename dialog box using ? with Find and Replace

Help & Support
1

I am sure this has been handled, but I could not locate it here, so I appologize in advance for this question.

I wanted to use the Rename dialog to delete the first few characters of some file names. My reading of the manual indicates that the ? character should match any character in the Find and Replace mode. When I enter ?, it is disallowed by DOpus.

I resolved the problem by using a regular expression, and I would still like to understand how to use Find and Replace.

Thanks,
BitSeeker

2

Find & Replace simply looks for what you enter in one field and swaps it for what you enter in the other.

Find & Replace from xxx to yyy is the same as

Wildcard from xxx to yyy or

Regular Expression from bxxx(.*)[/b] to \1yyy\2

(At least in general. There might be special cases where they each do something slightly different.)

If you want to match any-single-character (rather than zero-or-more-characters) then I think you have to use a . in a Regular Expression rename.

You can't use the ? wildcard in a Wildcard rename, only the * wildcard. (Although in other parts of Opus which use wildcards, like filter boxes, you can use the ? wildcard.)

3

The ? wildcard in a Wildcard rename is not valid.

That's exaclty the answer I needed, although, I am not sure why the single-character wildcard, "?" is not allowed in a Find and Replace Rename.

Thanks for the quick and clear response,
BitSeeker

4

You cannot have a ? character in a (Windows) filename so it would never be found in an existing filename and could never be inserted into a new filename.

Same reason you can't do a Find & Replace on : or \

I'm not sure why you can type a * into a Find & Replace rename, though. That's probably an oversight as * isn't a legal character in filenames either. I'll file a bug report on that. :slight_smile: