Bug 128929 - Find & Replace malfunctions upon using "Replace All" with regards to ellipses.
Summary: Find & Replace malfunctions upon using "Replace All" with regards to ellipses.
Status: RESOLVED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
6.3.3.2 release
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64) Windows (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
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Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2019-11-21 05:27 UTC by JIM7
Modified: 2019-11-21 16:08 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

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Description JIM7 2019-11-21 05:27:56 UTC
Description:
Attempted to use "Find & Replace" to fix my author's use of three dots, with an ellipse. When used as a single operation, it works properly.
When I try to use "Replace All" almost every character is replaced with an ellipse.

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Find three dots in text
2.Highlight three dots
3.Hit Ctrl-H
4.Tab to "Replace" and insert ellipse
5.Hit Alt-L
6.Everything is replaced by ellipses

Actual Results:
Everything is replaced by ellipses

Expected Results:
Replace the highlighted text in the "Find" box, with the text in the "Replace" box


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: Yes


OpenGL enabled: Yes

Additional Info:
Checked Profile.
Reset OpenGL to enabled. 
>
I get the same "Actual Results" as above
Comment 1 V Stuart Foote 2019-11-21 14:49:00 UTC
Can not reproduce on Windows 10 Home 64-bit en-US (1903) with
Version: 6.3.3.2 (x64)
Build ID: a64200df03143b798afd1ec74a12ab50359878ed
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0; UI render: GL; VCL: win; 
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI-Language: en-US
Calc: threaded

nor with current master/6.5.0

Please be sure 'Regular expressions' is unchecked on the 'Find & Replace' dialog (expose the 'Other options' if needbe). Having it checked will cause the effect of selecting/replacing each character.
Comment 2 V Stuart Foote 2019-11-21 16:08:54 UTC
OP replied in PM

<clip>
Thank you. Unchecking "Regular Expressions" fixed it.
What is the purpose of "Regular Expressions" if all it does is create problems?
</clip>


Simple answer is that for the Find & Replace dialog, providing the ICU lib based regular expressions [1][2] gives a much richer search capability than can be efficiently implemented within our edit engine and GUI widgets. It is not always needed (and so can be disabled), but when used is very powerful. Only expense is the terse syntax, and some confusion among users with different behavior when active/inactive.

=-ref-=
[1] http://userguide.icu-project.org/strings/regexp
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_regular_expression_engines