Find and Replace Text — Batch, Regex, Multi-Rule

Real-world use cases

• Rename a function across a pasted code block

  You pasted a chunk of a file into a chat and need to rename `getUser` to `fetchUser` everywhere before sending it back — but not touch `getUserId`. Add a rule with Find `getUser`, Replace `fetchUser`, turn on Whole word so `getUserId` is left alone, turn on Case sensitive so `GetUser` in a comment isn't swept up. The count tells you how many call sites you touched, and the highlight shows each one so you can confirm you didn't miss a method on a different object.

• Normalize messy text before importing to a CMS

  A writer hands you a doc full of curly quotes, em dashes typed as `--`, and double spaces after periods. Stack three rules: rule 1 Find `--` Replace `—`, rule 2 Find ` ` (two spaces) Replace ` ` (one space), rule 3 a regex rule Find `“|”` Replace `"`. They run in order in a single pass, and you copy clean text straight into the CMS field. No find-replace-repeat fifteen times in a word processor.

• Reformat a column of dates with a capture group

  You exported a CSV and the date column is `2024-01-31` but the downstream system wants `31/01/2024`. Turn on Regex, Find `(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2})`, Replace `$3/$2/$1`. Paste the whole column, hit copy, paste it back. One rule rewrites every row, and the replacement count confirms you caught all of them rather than silently skipping a malformed line.

• Swap a brand or project name before a public demo

  The slide notes still say the internal codename `Project Falcon` and you're about to screen-share. Find `Project Falcon`, Replace with the public name, leave Case sensitive off so `project falcon` in a lowercased heading is also caught. The shareable URL lets you hand the exact rule set to a teammate so the next deck gets scrubbed identically.

• Build a quick template by replacing placeholders

  You have a contract template with `{{CLIENT}}`, `{{DATE}}`, and `{{AMOUNT}}` placeholders. Add one rule per token: Find `{{CLIENT}}` Replace `Acme Corp`, and so on. Because the braces are literal with Regex off, you don't have to escape anything. The per-rule counts catch the classic bug of a placeholder you forgot to fill — a zero count means that token never appeared.

Common pitfalls

• Forgetting to escape regex metacharacters. With Regex on, a Find of `a.b` matches `axb`, `a8b`, anything — because `.` means any character. If you want a literal dot, turn Regex off (the safest default) or write `a\.b`. The reverse trap: turning Regex on for `(price)` and being surprised the parentheses vanished from the output — they're now a capture group, not literal text.

• Getting the rule order backwards. Rules cascade top-to-bottom, so a rule that creates the text another rule consumes must come first. If rule A turns `USD` into `$` and rule B turns `$` into `dollars`, every `USD` becomes `dollars` — probably not what you wanted. Use the up/down arrows and watch the per-rule counts to see which rule is firing on whose output.

• Leaving 'Replace all' off and assuming nothing matched. With global off, only the first occurrence is replaced and the count shows 1 even though the word appears ten times. If your count looks suspiciously low, check that Replace all is on for that rule.

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