I need to do a find and replace, where I need to replace 2 lines at time. Does anyone know how to do this in the VS2008 IDE?
To clarify, i want to replace 2 lines with 1 line.
Many thanks
+1
A:
The Find and Replace dialog allows the use of regular expressions. Try tossing a \n in the find string for the newline with the regular expressions option turned on.
David
2010-06-25 15:34:49
Yeah, gave that a go before posting the question. Not that easy i'm afraid.
Iain Hoult
2010-06-25 15:36:34
What problem are you running into? I just tested a simple scenario here and it's working. How complex is the find/replace you're doing?
David
2010-06-25 15:37:23
Also, you can use `:b*` to match empty characters at the start of line. So something like `first line:b*\n:b*second line` should work. Beware some special characters like parenthesis though, you must escape them: `\\(` in your search string.
František Žiačik
2010-06-25 15:38:03
Thanks František, that works brilliantly
Iain Hoult
2010-06-25 15:40:50
A:
You can activate the 'Use regular expressions' in the find dialog, and use \n to match a newline.
In your case, type FirstLine\n:Zs*SecondLine.
:Zs* skips leading blanks on line 2.
For example ,\n:Zs*c matches a comma, newline, any number of blanks, a 'c'.
Mau
2010-06-25 15:39:27
A:
Thanks to František Žiačik for the answer to this one.
To perform a find/replace, replacing multiple lines, you need to switch on regular expressions and use a line break (\n) between your lines, also using (:b*) at the start of each line to handle any tabs or spaces tabs.
So to find:
line one
line two
you would search for ":b*line one\n:b*line two" (without the quotes)
Iain Hoult
2010-06-25 15:48:10
A:
You can replace multiple lines with PilotEdit Lite. It is free. http://www.pilotedit.com
Dracoder
2010-07-01 04:00:33