# Replacing Text With Regular Expressions **URL:** https://forum.highend3d.com/t/replacing-text-with-regular-expressions/2413 **Category:** Maya **Tags:** mel **Created:** [March 1, 2007, 5:15am UTC](https://forum.highend3d.com/t/replacing-text-with-regular-expressions/2413 "2007-03-01T05:15:34Z") **Posts on this page:** 2 **Page:** 1
### Author: ![daniel-faust](https://forum.highend3d.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/e495f1/32.png) [@daniel-faust](https://forum.highend3d.com/u/daniel-faust) #### Post date: [March 1, 2007, 5:15am UTC](https://forum.highend3d.com/t/replacing-text-with-regular-expressions/2413/1 "2007-03-01T05:15:34Z")
My goal is to archive the following transformation in 5 steps, and I want to know if it is possible to do this in mel or if I need to build a MPxCommand which uses PCRE (or would you recommend some other approach than PCRE?): 1. ((step & sand) | wind) & (and | or) 2. ((step & sand) | wind) & (🅰 | ![](http://www.highend3d.com/boards/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif)🙂 3. ((step and sand) or wind) and (🅰 or ![](http://www.highend3d.com/boards/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif)🙂 4. (((file like '%step%') and (file like '%sand%')) or (file like '%wind%')) and ((file like '%🅰%') or (file like '% ![](http://www.highend3d.com/boards/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif):%')) 5. (((file like '%step%') and (file like '%sand%')) or (file like '%wind%')) and ((file like '%and%') or (file like '%or%')) admittedly, the last step is trivial. Daniel ---
### Author: ![joojaa](https://forum.highend3d.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@joojaa](https://forum.highend3d.com/u/joojaa) #### Post date: [March 1, 2007, 12:02pm UTC](https://forum.highend3d.com/t/replacing-text-with-regular-expressions/2413/2 "2007-03-01T12:02:49Z")
Maya has a PCRE like regexp subster yes, its a bit of subset but its there (and the more robust version isn't in the docs) if all esle fails use python basically you want to use substitute "string" "s/str/ummmm/"