Delimited Text Extractor

About the Delimited Text Extractor

Half the data people need is already in a file, wrapped in brackets, quotes or tags. Rather than writing a regular expression for each shape, type the two markers into the toolbar and every occurrence is collected in the order it appears. Markers are plain text, so <title>, user=" or a double pipe all work as they are, with no escaping to think about.

Scanning continues after each match, so a line holding three bracketed values yields three results. Leaving the end marker blank runs each match to the end of the text, and leaving the start marker blank begins at the beginning, which is how you take everything after a fixed header. The before and after modes ignore pairing altogether and simply cut at a single marker, useful for splitting key: value lines.

Restart at every line keeps a stray unclosed marker from swallowing the rest of the document, and it is the setting to use for log files where each row is independent. Results are trimmed and joined with your chosen separator, so a comma list is one click away. When nothing matches you get a message naming both markers rather than an empty pane. For pattern based extraction with capture groups, Regex Extract is the more powerful option, and Remove Lines Containing filters whole rows instead of parts of them.

How to use

1. Paste the source text on the left.
2. Type the Start marker and End marker that surround the part you want.
3. Tick Restart at every line when each row should be handled on its own.
4. Choose how the results are joined, then copy them.