# Use "replace with regular expression" on many albums at once

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/use-replace-with-regular-expression-on-many-albums-at-once/16531
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [January 21, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/use-replace-with-regular-expression-on-many-albums-at-once/16531 "2015-01-21T18:54:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![AMJF](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/3e96dc/32.png) [@AMJF](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/AMJF)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/use-replace-with-regular-expression-on-many-albums-at-once/16531/1 "2015-01-21T18:54:30Z")

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I have several series of albums with names like these:

demos - pc (a)  
.  
.  
demos - pc (g)

And which in this case runs in an alphabetical sequence from a to g, otherwise identical.

What I'd like to do is to add a prefix string to the album names, but don't want to have to do it for each one. I thought of using a "Replace with regular expression" with this:

^demos - pc (.)$

But how do I format the replacement string so that the letter in brackets (the ".") is preserved? As far as I can tell, the replacement string is a literal string.

---

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### Author: ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2015, 7:08pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/use-replace-with-regular-expression-on-many-albums-at-once/16531/2 "2015-01-21T19:08:38Z")

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> [@AMJF](#):
>
> I have several series of albums with names like these:
> 
> demos - pc (a)  
> .  
> .  
> demos - pc (g)
> 
> ... "Replace with regular expression" with this:
> 
> ^demos - pc (.)$  
> ...

I can hardly see a difference ...  
if you want to keep the "." in brackets but it is variable then a construction like  
search: ((.))  
Replace: ($1)  
would work...

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### Author: ![DetlevD](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/detlevd/32/123_2.png) [@DetlevD](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/DetlevD)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2015, 8:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/use-replace-with-regular-expression-on-many-albums-at-once/16531/3 "2015-01-21T20:26:39Z")

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> [@AMJF](#):
>
> I have several series of albums with names like these:  
> demos - pc (a) ... demos - pc (g)  
> And which in this case runs in an alphabetical sequence from a to g, otherwise identical.  
> What I'd like to do is to add a prefix string to the album names, but don't want to have to do it for each one. ...

This should work ...

**Action .....: Format value Field ......: ALBUM Formatstring: 'prefix string '%ALBUM%**

DD.20150121.2226.CET