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From: soh@andromeda.trl.OZ.AU (kam hung soh)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Multiple line regexps
Summary: Is it possible?
Keywords: regexp, multiple lines
Message-ID: <1991Jun2.231351.10229@trl.oz.au>
Date: 2 Jun 91 23:13:51 GMT
Sender: news@trl.oz.au (USENET News System)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Lines: 12

I would like to write a regular expression which can look for patterns
longer than one line.  For example, I want to find the first line of
each paragraph.  If I try this regexp in grep or awk, /^$^.+$/, nothing
happens.  Admittedly, I could replace newlines with a unique character
say '~', before I process my file, but I wondered if regexps can be used
across a newline boundary.

Regards,


Soh, Kam Hung      email: h.soh@trl.oz.au     tel: +61 3 541 6403 
Telecom Research Laboratories, POB 249 Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia