Multiline Regular Expression search and replace!

Question

I've hit a wall. Does anybody know a good text editor that has search and replace like Notepad++ but can also do multi-line regex search and replace? Basically, I am trying to find something that can match a regex like:

search oldlog\(.*\n\s+([\r\n.]*)\);
replace newlog\(\1\)

Any ideas?

Answer 1

You could use Visual Studio. Download Express for free if you don't have a copy.

VS's regex is non-standard, so you'd have to use \n:b+[\r\n] instead.

Answer 2

EditPlus does a good job at search/replace using regex (including multiline)

Answer 3

• GVim
• Programmer's Notepad

Answer 4

EditPad Pro has better regex capabilities than any other editor I've ever used.

Also, I suspect you have an error in your regex — [\r\n.] will match only carriage returns, newlines, and full stops. If you're trying to match any character (i.e. "dot operator plus CR and LF), try [\s\S] instead.

Answer 5

The latest version of UltraEdit has multiline find and replace w/ regex support.

Or if you're OK with using a more specialized regular expression tool for this, there's Regex Hero. It has the side benefit of being able to do everything on the fly. In other words, you don't have to click a button to test your regular expression because it's automatically tested after every keypress.

Personally, I'd use UltraEdit if I'm looking to replace text in multiple files. That way I can just select the files to replace as a batch and click Replace. But if I'm working with a single text file and I'm in need of writing a more complex regular expression then I'd paste it into Regex Hero and work with it there. That's because Regex Hero can save time when you see everything happen in real-time.

Answer 6

The Zeus editor can do multi-line search and replace.

Answer 7

PilotEdit is the perfect tool to do multiline regular expression search and replace. www.pilotedit.com

Answer 8

I use Eclipse, which is free and that you may already have if you are a developer. '\R' acts as platform independent line delimiter. Here is an example of multi-line search:

search:

\bibitem.(\R.)?\R?{([^{])}$\R^([^\].[^}]$\R.$\R.)

and replace:

\defcitealias{$2}{$3}

Answer 9

I'm pretty sure Notepad++ can do that now via the TextFX plugin (which is included by default). Hit Control-R in Notepad++ and have a play.