Regex to remove text between tags in Notepad++

Question

I have a code like this

<wp:post_name>artifical-sweeteners-ruin-your-health</wp:post_name>

I want to change it to

<wp:post_name></wp:post_name>

removing everything inside the tag.

Solution

Search for

<wp:post_name>[^<>]+</wp:post_name>

and replace all with

<wp:post_name></wp:post_name>

This assumes that tags can't be nested (which makes the regex quite safe to use). If other tags may be present, then you need to search for

(?i)<wp:post_name>.*?</wp:post_name>

instead (same replace string). However, this probably only works in the latest versions of Notepad++ which brought a major regex engine overhaul, and it's a bit riskier because it will mess up your file if nested <wp:post_name> tags can occur.

Comments

[Danny Englander]

Excellent! Just what I was looking for. This worked well in BBedit for Mac using grep in the find and replace function.