Re: How to highlight-regexp across multiple lines

[Thorsten Jolitz]

Angus Comber <anguscomber@gmail.com> writes:

> Strangely, this works better:
>
> aPDU[^W]+[}]$

nice, because I was looking for an alternative to [^\\000] since I want
to match Org regexps that actually do contain quite a lot \\000's. 

> [^W] is definitely mystifying.  Others eg [^some other letter] can work -
> but only if your target block doesn't contain that letter.  And some of
> them don't work at all - puzzling.

its indeed hard to find info about this stuff, I would need more info too.

> Even then, its mysterious because in a fairly large log file I have ALL
> aPDU's were highlighted correctly except this text where the selected text
> was from the start of the first to the end of the second one.
>
> aPDU-rose : invoke : {
>   invokeID 11,
>   operationValue local : 21,
>   argument {
>     crossRefIdentifier '40 2f'H,
>     eventSpecificInfo callEvent : connectionClearedEvent : {
>       droppedConnection {
>         call '02 01 19 0f'H,
>         device staticID : dialingNumber : "403"
>       },
>       releasingDevice deviceIdentifier : deviceIdentifier : dialingNumber :
> "403",
>       localConnectionInfo connect,
>       cause normalClearing
>     }
>   }
> }
>    -- monitor: 402
>    -- CSTA Fwk : set control party
>    -- setting cntrlDN=403 (for 1 parties)
>    -- event ignored
>   +++ Calls dump +++
>     1 connids, 1 threads, 1 calls
>     1:876002435e991001@2d8f990 2d8fc98:1[d403.2d90a08:1/EA-O
> d402.2d91e28:2/EA-D]
>   --- Calls dump ---
> 18:36:28.116 --- Input ---
> 18:36:28.125 +++ Input +++
> 18:36:28.125 DataFromSwitch 14 bytes
> 0000-000d 00 0c a2 0a 02 01 1e 30 05 02 01 05 05 00       |.......0......  |
>   Decoded:
> aPDU-rose : retResult : {
>   invokeID 30,
>   operValue {
>     operationValue local : 5,
>     result noData : NULL
>   }
> }

maybe you could experiment with non-greedy variants of the operators: 

,-------------------------------------------------------------------
| *?, +?, ??
|     are non-greedy variants of the operators above. The normal
|     operators '*', '+', '?' match as much as they can, as long as
|     the overall regexp can still match. With a following '?', they
|     will match as little as possible.
`-------------------------------------------------------------------


> On 3 April 2014 20:21, Thorsten Jolitz <tjolitz@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Angus Comber <anguscomber@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > It seems that it matches the aPDU messages provided there is no 0
>> > in the
>> > text.  I am puzzled by the [^\\000] - where can I find documentation on
>> it?
>>
>> Thats stolen from the Org-mode sources, and I asked the same question
>> before ;)
>>
>> Here is Carsten Dominik's answer:
>>
>>
>> ,----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> | > PS
>> | > Can anybody explain this marvelous construct in the regexp:
>> | >
>> | > ,---------
>> | > | [^\\000]
>> | > `---------
>> |
>> | This is just a cheep way to match any character at all, because \000
>> should
>> | not be part of any string (in C it indicates the end of a string).
>> | In principle you could put any character you are sure will not turn up,
>> | but \000 seems to be the safest choice.  It is
>> | faster (I think) than "\\(.\\|\n\\)*" because the first will
>> | just run fast and streight with a table lookup while the
>> | latter need to always alternate between two alternatives.
>> | I have not timed it, though.
>>
>> `----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> > Is it not null or something like that?  But then why does it not
>> > capture
>> > string "0"?
>>
>> This happened to me to, although I think it shouldn't.
>>
>> But when I used it with M-x regexp-builder it worked. With M-x reb-copy
>> (and then paste), the [^\\000] is transformed to a different
>> representation - maybe you could try reb-copy & paste it into your
>> function and see if it works then?
>>
>> > On 3 April 2014 16:08, Thorsten Jolitz <tjolitz@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Angus Comber <anguscomber@gmail.com> writes:
>> >>
>> >> > I was looking at this question on stackoverflow and it seems
>> >> > regex can
>> >> > select across multiple lines generally but how would I do so for
>> >> > highlight-regexp in emacs?
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >>
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/159118/how-do-i-match-any-character-across-multiple-lines-in-a-regular-expression
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > Eg I want to highlight ALL text from aPDU... to the final closing
>> brace:
>> >> >
>> >> > aPDU-rose : retResult : {
>> >> >   invokeID 2,
>> >> >   operValue {
>> >> >     operationValue local : 71,
>> >> >     result {
>> >> >       crossRefIdentifier '40 3f'H
>> >> >     }
>> >> >   }
>> >> > }
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > How would I do that using highlight-regexp?
>> >> >
>> >> > highlight-regexp aPDU-rose.* hi-yellow  would get me the first line -
>> but
>> >> > how to get everything including last } character?
>> >>
>> >> This regexp did match the aPDU in the gnus *Article* buffer:
>> >>
>> >> ,--------------------
>> >> | "^aPDU[^\\000]+[}]+?$"
>> >> `--------------------
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> cheers,
>> >> Thorsten
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>>
>> --
>> cheers,
>> Thorsten
>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
cheers,
Thorsten