How can I add the same prefix to all instances of a list of words in Notepad++?

Question

I have a large block of text, containing one or more instances of each of a list of words. I need to add a prefix to all instances of each word on the list.

Here's an example of what I'm trying to do -

List of words:

foo
bar

Prefix:

xyz

Text before:

onklnagknaubosabdof foo dklfn fknk foo klnksdnia bar dsknska foo knkn bar

Text after:

onklnagknaubosabdof xyzfoo dklfn fknk xyzfoo klnksdnia xyzbar dsknska xyzfoo knkn xyzbar

How can I do this in Notepad++? Or is there another tool that can do this for me easily?

Answer 1

• Ctrl+H
• Find what: (?=\b(?:foo|bar)\b)
• Replace with: xyz
• UNcheck Match case
• check Wrap around
• check Regular expression
• Replace all

Explanation:

(?=         # start lookahead, make sure we have after:
  \b        # word boundary, to NOT match xyzfoo or foobar
  (?:       # start non capture group
    foo     # literally
   |        # OR
    bar     # literally
  )         # end group
  \b        # word boundary, to NOT match xyzfoo or foobar
)           #end lookahead

Result for given example:

onklnagknaubosabdof xyzfoo dklfn fknk xyzfoo klnksdnia xyzbar dsknska xyzfoo knkn xyzbar

Screen capture:

If you want to replace foobar with xyzfooxyzbar, remove the word boundaries:

• Find what: (?=(?:foo|bar))