# How to detect variables like %s?

**URL:** <https://forum.xbench.net/t/how-to-detect-variables-like-s/301>\
**Category:** Technical Support\
**Created:** [October 27, 2017, 7:41am UTC](https://forum.xbench.net/t/how-to-detect-variables-like-s/301 "2017-10-27T07:41:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sally1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sally1](https://forum.xbench.net/u/sally1)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 7:41am UTC](https://forum.xbench.net/t/how-to-detect-variables-like-s/301/1 "2017-10-27T07:41:06Z")

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I tried following expression provided in the forum but it failed to detect “source: %1”, “target: 1”.

source: "(\<%[$[:alphanum:]]+\>)=1"  
target: -\<@1\>

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![omartin](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/forum.xbench.net/omartin/32/82_2.png) [@omartin](https://forum.xbench.net/u/omartin)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 8:25am UTC](https://forum.xbench.net/t/how-to-detect-variables-like-s/301/2 "2017-10-27T08:25:49Z")

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The following search detects those segments that contain variables like %s or %1 in target but are missing in target.

Source:`"(\%[:alphanum:])=1"`  
Target: `-@1`  
Search Mode: **Regular Expressions**  
**PowerSearch** : On