36

I'm trying to create a regex that will select an entire line where it contains a matching string.

I can't seem to get it to work. Here is the expression:

^.*?(\bEventname 2\b).*$

You can see the test case and what I've tried here:

https://www.regex101.com/r/mT5rZ3/1

halfer
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Dyvel
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    What about `.*Eventname 2.*`. – m0skit0 Jul 31 '15 at 11:54
  • you forget to put m modifier. https://www.regex101.com/r/mT5rZ3/2 – Avinash Raj Jul 31 '15 at 11:57
  • @AvinashRaj Why add multi-line modifier if OP only wants to match single lines? – m0skit0 Jul 31 '15 at 11:59
  • @AvinashRaj I see it working in regex101 but in my software (uBot Studio) it doesn't. Don't think I can use m modifier there, but thanks for the try :-) – Dyvel Jul 31 '15 at 12:01
  • Actually I got you solution @m0skit0 to work by first filtering my search string to only use the code in parenthesis as it was unique and made it easier to match... Thanks! – Dyvel Jul 31 '15 at 12:33

5 Answers5

44

here's what I use and it works perfectly for me

^.*substring.*$
mkkabi
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28

This answer solves the question with 463 steps instead of 952 steps. Just ensure a new line at the end of the file.

.*Eventname 2.*\n

https://www.regex101.com/r/mT5rZ3/5

EDIT 4-9-2022

With .*Eventname 2.*\n? it also solves with 463 steps, but there is no need to ensure a new line at the end of the file.

Evandro Coan
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7

If you are using the PHP regex . don't match newlines. So 

.*(\bEventname 2\b).*

would be enough. If . matches newline you would need *? to make the dots non-greedy (so it just matches one line, instead of everything). You also need to be in multi-line mode to use ^ and $, but that shouldn't be necessary (since you only want to match one line anyway).

Astrogat
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  • My search string would be like: Eventname 2 (T104) - can't seem to get it to work like that... ? – Dyvel Jul 31 '15 at 12:11
  • .*(\bEventname 2 \(T104\)).* Skip the word boundry, since it's already ended with ). You also need to escape the (). – Astrogat Jul 31 '15 at 12:22
7

Try this:

(.*(?:Eventname 2).*)

explaination:

( ... ) : groups and captures the line

(?:...) : groups without capturing the string that the line needs to contain

.* : any characters

Leonardo Scotti
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1

You are using a string containing several lines. By default, the ^ and $ operators will match the beginning and end of the whole string. The m modifier will cause them to match the beginning and end of a line.

bz9js
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