Nothing To Lose

Many a times I have to update pages where I need to display contents as HTML lists. The problems is the contents sent to me is in n number of lines of plain text.

Generally you will end up copy pasting <li> and </li> at the beginning and end of every line, for few lines it is ok, but what about if you have around 100 lines.

Well well well… if you knew regular expressions you life will be saved, here is what you do –

• Copy paste all text in a text editor that supports find and replace with regular expression support.

This is line one
This is line two
This is line three
This is line four
This is line five
This is line ….
…………………….
…………………….
This is line fifty

• open the replace dialogue box fill the following (make sure you have selected the regular-expression option for find)
  • find text : ^     (yup the carat symbol)
  • replace with : <li>
  • Hit replace all — all your lines should now be showing <li> in front of it.

<li>This is line one
<li>This is line two
<li>This is line three
<li>This is line four
<li>This is line five
<li>This is line ….
<li>…………………….
<li>…………………….
<li>This is line fifty

• Open the replace dialogue box again and repeat the same steps again only:
  • find text now should be: $
  • replace with : </li>

<li>This is line one</li>
<li>This is line two</li>
<li>This is line three</li>
<li>This is line four</li>
<li>This is line five</li>
<li>This is line ….</li>
<li>…………………….</li>
<li>…………………….</li>
<li>This is line fifty</li>

• Do forget to add unordered list or ordered list  tags <ul> or <ol> at the first line and </ul> or </ol> respectively as the last line to complete the HTML list.

<ul>

<li>This is line one</li>
<li>This is line two</li>
<li>This is line three</li>
<li>This is line four</li>
<li>This is line five</li>
<li>This is line ….</li>
<li>…………………….</li>
<li>…………………….</li>
<li>This is line fifty</li>

</ul>

And in three steps your complete text is now  a HTML list.