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Full Discussion: Searching backwards using regular expressions
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Searching backwards using regular expressions Post 302388706 by Altay_H on Thursday 21st of January 2010 07:20:44 AM
Old 01-21-2010
Searching backwards using regular expressions
I'm having trouble writing a regular expression that matches the text I need it to. Let me give an example to express my trouble. Suppose I have the following text:
Code:
if(condition)
	multiline
	statement
else if(condition)
	multiline
	statement
else if(condition)
	multiline
	statement
else if(condition)
	multiline
	statement
else if(condition)
	multiline
	statement
	find me
else if(condition)
	multiline
	statement

I want to find the line "find me" and match everything up from it to the nearest "else if(condition)". There can be anything at all between them, including newline characters. I tried the following regular expression:
Code:
m/else\sif\(condition\)[\s\S]*?find\sme/

Unfortunately the above regular expression does not do what I want. It finds the first "else if(condition)" and selects everything down to the first "find me" despite the nongreedy asterisk. Is there a way to match the "find me" first and then search up for for the "else if(condition)"?


Note: I know the above example doesn't make any sense code-wise. It's not the text I'm trying to match, but it's much less complicated and expresses what I'm trying to accomplish better.
 

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LEARN ABOUT CENTOS

ausearch_add_regex

AUSEARCH_ADD_REGEX(3)						  Linux Audit API					     AUSEARCH_ADD_REGEX(3)

NAME

       ausearch_add_regex - use regular expression search rule

SYNOPSIS

       #include <auparse.h>

       int ausearch_add_regex(auparse_state_t *au, const char *expr);

DESCRIPTION

       ausearch_add_regex  adds  one  search condition based on a regular expression to the current audit search expression. The search conditions
       can then be used to scan logs, files, or buffers for something of interest. The regular	expression  follows  the  posix  extended  regular
       expression conventions, and is matched against the full record (without interpreting field values).

       If an existing search expression E is already defined, this function replaces it by (E && this_regexp).

RETURN VALUE

       Returns -1 if an error occurs; otherwise, 0 for success.

SEE ALSO

       ausearch_add_expression(3), ausearch_add_item(3), ausearch_clear(3), ausearch_next_event(3), regcomp(3).

AUTHOR

       Steve Grubb

Red Hat 							     Sept 2007						     AUSEARCH_ADD_REGEX(3)
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