In Notepad++, how do I split long lines in specific amount of rows?

Question

I'm looking for something similar to this question. However, I'd like to chose the amount of columns and export it as table.

My input is a .txt file with a single line and many numbers separated by a variable amount of spaces.

32 45 2.65   -845     1 -84    97.236        454   35.78 77.12    948.87       
         151    -23.5         -787.48     13.005   31

I know every x numbers (being x a fix amount in every file) there should be a break. For instance the first 4 numbers in 4 columns the first row, next 4 the second row and so on.

+-------+---------+--------+------+
| col1  |  col2   |  col3  | col4 |
+-------+---------+--------+------+
| 32    | 45      | 2.65   | -845 |
| 1     | -84     | 97.236 |  454 |
| 35.78 | 77.12   | 948.87 |  151 |
| -23.5 | -787.48 | 13.005 |   31 |
+-------+---------+--------+------+

Actually the objective is to create a .csv file with the right amount of columns. Is it possible to do this in Notepad ++?

Please [edit] and add a before and after example to your question as it is not clear what you are trying to do. — DavidPostill, Nov 13 '19 at 14:14
Short answer: Yes it is possible. As said above, show us example before and after. — Toto, Nov 13 '19 at 14:40
@DavidPostill I edited the question, I hope is clear now. Thanx — Albert, Nov 14 '19 at 07:57

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 14 '19 at 16:25

Ctrl+H
Find what: (?:\A|\G)(\S+)\s+(\S+)\s+(\S+)\s+(\S+)\s+
Replace with: $1,$2,$3,$4\n
CHECK Wrap around
CHECK Regular expression
UNCHECK . matches newline
Replace all

Explanation:

(?:             # non capture group
   \A           # beginning of file
 |              # OR
   \G           # Restart from lastmatch position
)               # end group
(\S+)           # group 1, 1 or more non spaces
\s+             # 1 or more spaces
(\S+)           # group 2, 1 or more non spaces
\s+             # 1 or more spaces
(\S+)           # group 3, 1 or more non spaces
\s+             # 1 or more spaces
(\S+)           # group 4, 1 or more non spaces
\s+             # 1 or more spaces

Replacement:

$1,$2,$3,$4     # content of the 4 gcapture groups, comma separated, you can use any kind of separator
\n              # line feed, use \r\n for windows end of line

Screen capture (before):

Screen capture (after):

Nice answer! Well explained and it works. It didn't work at the beginning because unlike the example my files start with spaces as well. It is not working in the last row but it is just a minor setback. Actually at the end I have done it with Python (pandas) — Albert, Nov 14 '19 at 16:51

In Notepad++, how do I split long lines in specific amount of rows?

1 Answers1