Regex: Match/Delete everything on a line except parenthesis (keep the parentheses and delete the rest of the words on the line)

I have this kind of line:

Word (mother) word 33 (453) word word 444 (4) word

The result should be: (mother) (453) (4)

I want to keep the parentheses and delete the rest of the words on the line. I try this regex, but not too good :(

Search: \([^!(]*?\)|\(|\)

Replace by: \1

1

3 Answers

• Ctrl+H
• Find what: (?:^|\G)(?:\h*\w+\h*)+(\(\w+\)\h*)|(?:\h*\w+)*$
• Replace with: $1
• check Wrap around
• check Regular expression
• Replace all

Explanation:

 (?:^|\G) # non capture group, beginning of line OR restart from last match position (?: # non capture group \h* # 0 or more horizontal spaces \w+ # 1 or more word characters \h* # 0 or more horizontal spaces )+ # end group, may appear 1 or more times ( # start group 1 \(\w+\) # 1 or more word characters surounded by parenthesis \h* # 0 or more horizontal spaces ) # end group 1
| # OR (?: # non capture group \h*\w+ # 0 or more horizontal spaces, followed by 1 or more word characters )* # group may appear 0 or more times $ # end of line

Result for given example:

(mother) (453) (4) 

---

A simple regex to extract a word with its parenthesis is:

\(([^)]+)\)

first replace

edited:

.*?(\(.*?\))

with

\1

then, replace

^(.*\)).*

with

\1

Final output

(mother)(453)(4)

2

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