Chris, Use perl and SAX if you can, maybe, but if you have to do it by hand you might try to use the 's' modifier to make it all act like a single line. Good luck, Troy >>> cdf123 at cdf123.com 07/24/03 04:53PM >>> This is a little off topic, but I figured there's a few [emacs|vi|perl|sed] people here that could help me out. I have an xml file with lines like this: example line: <field type="string">value</field><orig_field>value</orig_field> basicly it's storing fields with their datatypes and original values. I need to search this file for lines that the values match (or don't match). here's my regexp: /<(.*) type=\".*\">((.|\n)*)<\/\1><orig_\1>\2<\/orig_\1>/ I need to do this in 3 languages (javascript, vbscript-asp, and php) My problem is with multi line data, I can match the multiline initialy, but the "\2" won't work with it, but if it's all on one line it works fine. e.g.: regexp: /<(.*) type=\".*\">((.|\n)*)<\/\1><orig_\1><\/orig_\1>/ matches: <field type="string">value value</field><orig_field></orig_field> regexp: /<(.*) type=\".*\">((.|\n)*)<\/\1><orig_\1>\2<\/orig_\1>/ doesn't match: <field type="string">value value</field><orig_field>value value</orig_field> Any idea on what I'm doing wrong? Thanks in advance for the help. Chris Frederick _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list