How can I match the beginning of a line in dreamweaver with regex?

Question

Problem:
^.+ matches only the first line of the source code in dreamweaver. I need it to match each line so that I can wrap each full line in P tags. I have 500 files to do this in.

I know ^ should match the beginning of a line and I also know that multi-line mode must be enabled for it to work on each line and not just at the beginning of the file. I also know dreamweaver uses javascript source code.

Is lack of multi-line mode the problem? Is there any way to turn it on in dreamweaver? I tried using /m at the beginning search to enable multi-line mode, but that didn't work either.

I'm open to any solution for my current problem, even if it involves a different program. However, a fix for dreamweaver is ideal, 2nd place is a way to do this in notepad++, 3rd place is a way do to this in python or something (I only know javascript, you'll have to spell it out exactly in another language).

Thank you,
robert

p.s. I found I can "select all > right click > selection > indent" to add two spaces to the beginning of each line in dreamweaver. This allows me to find the beginning of each line with / {2,}/. I really don't want to select all > indent on all 500 files, but i'm about to start since I've already spent a few hours bludgeoning dreamweaver.

Answer 1

Don't use Dreamweaver for this - use Notepad++ (since you are familiar with it) at its regular expression support is superior.

If you are comfortable with a more robust scripting language (Python, Ruby, Perl, etc.) then that would be an ever better way to do it.

Answer 2

The way that I might do this in DW would not involve using the find-replace tool's "Regular Expression" option, but instead using just plain old matching on a CrLf.

In the Find portion, since you can't directly enter a CrLf, you'll have to copy one to your clipboard beforehand and paste it in where needed.

In the Replace portion, replace with:

</p>[CrLf]
<p>

Again, be sure to paste in a proper "[CrLf]". This will work on all but the very first and very last lines of your document, so I know this isn't a 100% solution. There are probably better solutions using other tools that someone else can recommend!

Good luck!
-Mike

Answer 3

I had a flash of insight right after posting. (isn't that the way of it?)

Dreamweaver can find the end of each line with \r\n so instead of trying to work forward, i should have just worked backwards.
search: (.+)(\r\n)
replace: <p>$1</p>$2