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Find And Replace: Searching for Check#

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jason

12 Jul, 2025 01:03 AM

I am using Find and Replace Build 1218 and MD version 2024.4 (5253) on a Windows OS.

I have recently changed banks, and when I import a .qif file that I have downloaded from the new bank's website, it is importing cheque numbers "Cheque#" for each transaction. This is a credit card account, so there are no cheque numbers and it appears that these numbers are just a number assigned for the number of transactions that I have downloaded and imported each time. So if I import 7 transactions, each transaction will be numbered individually from 1 to 7. The cheque numbers imported repeat themselves on each download, always starting at number one.

I can't seem to exclude this information from the bank's website, so I thought I would use Find and Replace to remove these numbers every time I download them.

Problem: I cannot find a way to set up Find & Replace in a manner that allows all of the transactions with the Cheque#'s to be found. I can do a search for the transaction with a Cheque# of 1 or a Cheque number of 2 etc, however I wanted to save a Find that had multiple numbers in the Free Text area of F&R.

I have attached a screenshot of a successful search for a transaction with a Cheque# of 1. However, if I enter multiple numbers in the Free Text Field, the search fails.

Question: What are the delimiters for the Free Text Field? I have tried commas, Colons, semicolons and inverted commas

Also, it seems that the website that was used to store the Users Manual for F&R is no longer active: http://www.mennesoft.com/findandreplace/index.html#usage

Thanks

• Find___Replace_Chequ__1.png 69.3 KB
• Find___Replace_Chequ__2.png 66 KB

1. 1 Posted by dwg on 12 Jul, 2025 01:38 AM

   

   When that site was alive I captured a copy of the F & R User manual, it is attached

   • Mennē_Software_Solutions_-_Moneydance_Find_And_Replace_Extension.pdf 111 KB
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2. 2 Posted by jason on 12 Jul, 2025 06:32 AM

   

   Thanks dwg, That looked like it may have been a saviour; however, the manual refers to using "Regular Expressions", which was a hyperlink, but the link does not work, and the details of the link are not visible. The manual also notes that the Regular Expression will be used with "Matcher.find()", so I am assuming that this is Java-based

   Searches on "Regular Expression" for Java seem to indicate that commas, spaces and tabs are all acceptable delimiters.

   Does anyone have any further insight on how this may work?

   Alternatively, can someone put a couple of Cheque#'s on a couple of transactions and see if they can get F&R to find these cheque #'s?

   Thanks

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3. 3 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 12 Jul, 2025 06:56 AM

   

   Yes it's java based.

   It appears to use the java.util.regex libraries - refer:

   https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/21/docs/api/java.base/java/u...

   and

   http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/

   It appears to use "=" and "==" in text position 1 to determine that a regex expression has been entered by user.

   and if no regex is entered, it appears to wrap the free text with
   

   "(?ui)\Q"
   

   text
   

   "\E"
   

   I just tried this to find "DirDeb" in check field and it worked
   

   "=^.i.D.*"
   

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4. 4 Posted by jason on 12 Jul, 2025 07:41 AM

   

   Hi Stuart,

   Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, I don't know what to do with the information provided.

   I can find an entry in MD that has a cheque# of 1, without using the "=" sign as shown in my first attachment in the original post.

   I cannot, however, get it to find any entries if I, for example, put "1,2" (without the quotes) or any variation of 1 and 2 with delimiters and/or with or without equal signs even though there are 2 entries with Cheque#'s 1 and 2 respectively in the account that it is set to search.

   My intent was to have this search memorised with the numbers 1 to 20 listed and separated in whatever manner they needed to be in the "Free Text" Field so I could easily find and delete the cheque#s that are downloaded from the bank.

   Any further assistance will be appreciated

   Thanks

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5. 5 Posted by jason on 12 Jul, 2025 07:42 AM

   

   Hi Support,

   I also have posted this in the original chat on the infinite kind website. Apologies if I am now spamming you

   Hi Stuart,

   Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, I don't know what to do with the information provided.

   I can find an entry in MD that has a cheque# of 1, without using the "=" sign as shown in my first attachment in the original post.

   I cannot, however, get it to find any entries if I, for example, put "1,2" (without the quotes) or any variation of 1 and 2 with delimiters and/or with or without equal signs even though there are 2 entries with Cheque#'s 1 and 2 respectively in the account that it is set to search.

   My intent was to have this search memorised with the numbers 1 to 20 listed and separated in whatever manner they needed to be in the "Free Text" Field so I could easily find and delete the cheque#s that are downloaded from the bank.

   Any further assistance will be appreciated

   Thanks

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6. 6 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 12 Jul, 2025 08:30 AM

   

   Ok, I took from your posts that you were saying that regex wasn’t working. But it sounds like you need regex help?

   Rather than a list of check numbers 1-20, can you advise what you want to find? Ie is is any number? Or is it really the range 1-20 for example. I can then give you a regex.

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7. 7 Posted by dwg on 12 Jul, 2025 09:04 AM

   

   My interpretation is he wants to find a list of numbers so for example 1 or 2 or 3 .. up to 7 and remove them.

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8. 8 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 12 Jul, 2025 09:42 AM

   

   =^\s*(10|12|13)\s*$
   

   will look for any text where the whole field (excluding whitespace) is one of 10 or 12 or 13 - for example....

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9. 9 Posted by jason on 12 Jul, 2025 10:49 AM

   

   Thanks dwg and Stuart.

   Stuart, your example worked perfectly. Thank you. I am surprised that this field needs the user to know Java Regex to get a result, as the rest of the extension is so simple and easy to use.

   It also baffles me a bit, as the field directly below this field, "Tags" works as you would expect - i.e. put the tag or tags in that you are looking for with a comma and a space between them, and it will find them all.

   Anyways, I put in some random cheque#'s in the entries and the expression that you provided found them all, so once again, thank you.

   I have provided a screenshot of the F&R screen showing what I finally put in and the fact that if found the entries with numbers in the cheque# column, in case it helps anyone in the future.

   • Find___Replace_Chequ__3.png 54.3 KB
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10. 10 Posted by dwg on 12 Jul, 2025 11:10 AM

    

    Tags are a comma delimited list in the register so F & R has been developed to handle them, hence the options provided for the field in the extension.

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11. 11 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 12 Jul, 2025 11:40 AM

    

    TBH - you are lucky the F&R tool allows regex. It's a complex 'developer' type option but allows you to find stuff. No other extensions and nothing else in MD allows this.. It's actually pretty neat.. As Des says, to allow a list of numbers would be a very unique case for this feature....

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12. 12 Posted by jason on 12 Jul, 2025 11:49 AM

    

    Thanks Stuart. Thanks dwg

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13. jason closed this discussion on 12 Jul, 2025 11:44 PM.