Regex match for text in two lines not working

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Hi,

I want to write a pattern to find a match for text that spans across two lines.

I would like to explain the scenario. In a given page, I want to find whether the following present or not.

C#

<samplefirst>

<samplesecond>

I have given the pattern like this.

C#

Regex match = new Regex(@"<samplefirst>(\r?\n?|\n|\s?)*<samplesecond>", RegexOptions.Multiline)

I have tried out many combinations of \n and \r. But nothing make it out if the two tags are in two lines. I checked with some regex validation sites like "regexpal.com". The pattern is woking fine over there. But it fails to find any match in Visual studio.

Any help at the earliest is appreciable.
Thanks in advance.

Posted 19-Jan-14 22:28pm

Member 10535273

Updated 19-Jan-14 23:01pm

v2

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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-19T23:10:00

Solution 1

Use whitesapce instead of \r\n...

<samplefirst>(\s)*<samplesecond>

Sample code for C#...

C#

Regex oRegex = new Regex( @"<samplefirst>(\s)*<samplesecond>" );

MatchCollection oMatchCollection = oRegex .Matches( string.Format( "<samplefirst>{0} {0}<samplesecond><samplefirst>{0}no{0}<samplesecond>", Environment.NewLine ) );

Posted 19-Jan-14 23:10pm

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter

Updated 20-Jan-14 0:24am

v2

Comments

Member 10535273 20-Jan-14 5:33am

Thanks for your replay. No other characters should come in between these two tags other than space or newline. so i cannot give the (.)*. Applying (\s)* alone not solving the problem as the text lies in two lines.

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter 20-Jan-14 5:37am

<samplefirst>(\s)*<samplesecond>
(http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_regexp_whitespace.asp)

Member 10535273 20-Jan-14 5:40am

(\s)* not working.(\s)* works if i give the two tags in same line, but not for two lines.

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter 20-Jan-14 5:42am

Where you tested it? With me it works perfectly (as \s stands for all whitespace like ff, cr, tab...).

Member 10535273 20-Jan-14 6:00am

yes...I tested. Its not working in c#.

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter 20-Jan-14 6:24am

updated the answer with c# (that works with me)...

Member 10535273 22-Jan-14 6:53am

Thank you for helping out to solve the issue...I was reading the file line by line inside a loop. So which ever pattern I was giving, it never checked for multiple line. Now I read the file to a string outside the loop n then checked for the match.(\s)* works perfectly then...(\s) considers \s,\n etc..Once again thank you for providing the help.

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter 22-Jan-14 6:58am

Glad to help...