Searching across multiple lines

JoeBelmaati · Aug 17, 2004#12004-08-17T17:16+00:00

I have downloaded UltraEdit, and I am assessing it for possible use. I was wondering whether it is possible to search across line breaks, i.e. a block of code.

Sincerely,
Joe

DanKirkd · Aug 18, 2004#22004-08-18T18:43+00:00

The quick answer is "yes". You can either select the code you want to match, if that's your intent, and then call up the Find dialog via a CTRL-F for example, and then do a Find Next, or you could insert the appropriate line breaks in your search text using a ^p, or equivalent. Read the Help on the Find dialog for more details on this and other capabilities.

Dan

ahbrown41 · Aug 20, 2004#32004-08-20T15:29+00:00

Is there a way to search accross an unknown set of lines? So for instance I have:

public void test() {
...
...
...
}

And I could match from the first { to the closing }. I think other programs use a multi-line mode for this.

Any thoughts?

DanKirkd · Aug 20, 2004#42004-08-20T16:38+00:00

Refer to documentation regarding the use of regular expressions. You should be able to do what you want to do.

Dan

ahbrown41 · Aug 20, 2004#52004-08-20T17:01+00:00

Yes you are right. I was in fact doing it wrong.

This appears to work:
{.*\p*}

Thanks!!

beejai · Aug 30, 2004#62004-08-30T12:24+00:00

Hi Guys,

this doesn't seem to work for me. I want to search across multiple lines, but it is not known how many lines there are. 2 or more parts need to be found before the replace-function shoud match. So I'm looking for something like ...

find:

Code: Select all

KEY1[?^p^b^r^n]++KEY2

or better, because i have to replace something in KEY2:

find:

Code: Select all

^(KEY1[?^p^b^r^n]++^)KEY2

replace:

Code: Select all

^1KEY3

nothing seems to work as soon as I try to go multiline.Tryed both syntax variants:

Code: Select all

KEY1[.\p]*KEY2

No difference.

please help.
Beejai

mrainey56 · Aug 30, 2004#72004-08-30T13:03+00:00

Maybe you can get an idea here that will help:

General thread: How do I replace multiple lines

ahbrown41 · Aug 30, 2004#82004-08-30T14:23+00:00

Yeah my previous solution only worked in one case. It should be simple to select code fragements like this:

Code: Select all

function blah (
      int a=1;
      a++;
      ......
)

If I want to select the function body from ( to ) I do not appear to be able to when the number of lines between the brackets is unknow.

I tried: (.*\p*) and \(.*\p*\)

Is there a solution anyone is aware of? Other Regex solutions appear to be able to handle this via a flag. I really do not thing a macro should be the answer.

Thanks!

beejai · Aug 30, 2004#92004-08-30T15:19+00:00

mrainey56 wrote:Maybe you can get an idea here that will help:

General thread: How do I replace multiple lines

Sorry, but no, that didn't help. I have to do a s&r on a folder structure containing thousands of files.

The problem can be tracked down to one thing: Is there a way to specify a unknown number of Lines in UE's regExp-ability ? As soon a working solution for

Code: Select all

[?^p]++

is found, all probs in this thread would be solved.

If it can't be done, it should realy be added to the todo-list on UE v10.20d / 10.30

please help
Beejai

thierrybo · Oct 24, 2004#102004-10-24T14:11+00:00

Hum, this seems to work for me.

I have a multine text :

Code: Select all

string1
any
number
of
lines
string2

With UE set on unix regexp, doing a 'replace in files' with :

Find :

Code: Select all

(string1)(.*\p*)(string2)

Replace with : \1 \3
Regexp : on

will output :

Code: Select all

string1
string2

Thierry B.

beejai · Oct 28, 2004#112004-10-28T13:32+00:00

Hey, above would be ace. But I can't reproduce that.
I got 100 testfiles, one contains:

Code: Select all

<head><meta name="Schluessel" content="PK-V0000-T4444-D0000-N0000-G310805-A0000-X0000-B00000002">

<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="expires" content="1800">
<meta name="Date" content="01.09.2001">
<title>pin8</title>
</head>

Find: (N0000)(.*\p*)(pin8)
Replace: \1 \3
RegExps set to unix style
Output: Replaced 0 occourences in 0 files.

??

plz help.
Beejai

thierrybo · Nov 04, 2004#122004-11-04T17:49+00:00

Ok, I understand why. This is because in my case, pattern (string1) and pattern (string2) are the exact content of a full line, not a part of line as in your case.

TB

Edit: This is a potential bug in UE because I tested your case in Visual Regexp 3.0 and it works (http://laurent.riesterer.free.fr/regexp/). See picture :

beejai · Nov 05, 2004#132004-11-05T09:39+00:00

thierrybo wrote:Ok, I understand why. This is because in my case, pattern (string1) and pattern (string2) are the exact content of a full line, not a part of line as in your case.

Edit: This is a potential bug in UE because I tested your case in Visual Regexp 3.0 and it works (http://laurent.riesterer.free.fr/regexp/).

I agree. I tried to explicit define the strings as part of a line with

Code: Select all

(.*string1)(.*\p*)(string2.*) or (.*string1.*)(.*\p*)(.*string2.*)

but it didn't work either.
Then I realized there must be something wrong with the ".*STRING" pattern in general. Try this:
Testfile:

Code: Select all

<head><meta name="Schluessel">
<head><meta name="Schluessel" content="PK-V0000-T4444-D0000-N0000-G310805-A0000-X0000-B00000002">

Replace ".*sel" with "****" results in:

Code: Select all

<head><meta name="Sc****>
<head><meta name="Sc**** content="PK-V0000-T4444-D0000-N0000-G310805-A0000-X0000-B00000002">

which is terribly wrong !!

But a replace ".*Schluessel" with "****" gives the expected result:

Code: Select all

****>
**** content="PK-V0000-T4444-D0000-N0000-G310805-A0000-X0000-B00000002">

It might have something to do with the double quotes. But they should be a normal member of the "."-set.
Please can any developer take care of this issue?

best regards...
Beejai

grymmjack · Jul 11, 2005#142005-07-11T14:57+00:00

I know this is a dead thread, but I thought I'd post the solution in case anyone else out there is looking.

They had an error in their RegExp.

(.*\p*) looks for multiple occurrences of any character, followed by multiple occurrences of newline.

What you want is (.*\p)* which looks for multiple occurences of (multiple occurences of any character followed by a newline) ie: multiple lines.

Cheers

Tom | d3
http://www.tomauger.com

beejai · Jul 11, 2005#152005-07-11T15:56+00:00

Not as dead as you may think

Thanks for the info, but it's still not possible to search across multiple lines with your pattern. If I gave up to quick, can you supply an example ?

Beejai