I have tried to use the Notepad++ Search/Replace with a Regular Expression to replace specific words with shorter versions of those words.
I used the following regex to match every word that ends with er (but not er as a word) - and replace the matching words with the same words minus the ending r, using a backreference:
Find what: ([a-zA-z]+e)r
Replace with: $1
But it doesn't replace the matching words, even though it finds them.
However, if I change the backreference syntax to this:
Replace with: \1
Everything works fine.
Why doesn't the $1 backreference work?
What is the difference between the two forms of the backrefernce - \1 and $1?