Regex replace Harvard style bibliography references \d{4}:\s\d+ with comma

Question

Harvard bibliography, if you do not use Mendeley on time can get tough.

[Sihler 1999: 122; Trask 2000: 164]. 
[Benveniste 1935: 170-171, Бенвенист 1955, Bomhard, Kerns 1994: 56-59].

The way I quote authors in my PhD is wrong. It should have had a , instead of :. Like

[Sihler 1999, 122; Trask 2000, 164].

With \d{4}:\s\d+ http://regex101.com/r/mE0rT9/1 I can find them, but how to replace , instead of : in Word? Thanks.

Which language are you running? – Avinash Raj Oct 17 '14 at 18:31 — Avinash Raj, Oct 17 '14 at 18:31
VBA, a kind of JS in MS Office, Windows. – Marcis Gasuns Oct 17 '14 at 18:36 — Marcis Gasuns, Oct 17 '14 at 18:36

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:05

0

You need to use lookahead and lookbehind or backreferences, http://www.regular-expressions.info/lookaround.html.

I would probably do something like this: preg_replace("~(\d{4}):(\s\d+)~", "$1,$2", $str) in php for instance as an example of the latter solution.

Here's a post which talks about backreferences in javascript: JavaScript - string regex backreferences

edited May 23 '17 at 12:05

Community

answered Oct 17 '14 at 18:36

doliver

Regex dialects tend to vary greatly. You'll have to find the equivalent constructs in your language. – doliver Oct 17 '14 at 18:44

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

0

Expression:

(?<=\d{4})\:

It uses a lookbehind to match but not return the year.

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

answered Oct 17 '14 at 18:39

Mr. Mascaro

https://github.com/gasyoun/SanskritMacros/issues/2 documented what really worked for me in MS Word 2007, thanks. – Marcis Gasuns Oct 18 '14 at 09:52