Multiline Bash Regex Match

Question

I've been reading through tons of threads about this, but none have helped me yet.

This is a sample of my text:

    [userId:@"1"
        userName:@""
            userPos:@[@"11006321C", ]
         userDisp:@[@"4200012FD6", ]];



[userId:@"2"
        userName:@""
            userPos:@[@"412520084C",
                     @"7200851", 
                     @"54720021", 
                     ]
        userDisp:@[@"230035FD6", 
                     @"3213456432C0035FD6", 
                     @"1F200538D5", 
                     ]];

I'm trying to capture this:

userPos:@[@"11006321C", ]
         userDisp:@[@"4200012FD6", ]]

and

userPos:@[@"412520084C",
                     @"7200851", 
                     @"54720021", 
                     ]
        userDisp:@[@"230035FD6", 
                     @"3213456432C0035FD6", 
                     @"1F200538D5", 
                     ]]

(All matches from the text) using regex: userPos:@\[((?:.\r?\n?)*)\]

Trying it in bash using:

for string in $file # text has been read into this variable
do
    [[ $word =~ $regex ]]
    if [[ ${BASH_REMATCH[0]} ]]
    then
        string="${x:+x }${BASH_REMATCH[0]}"
        userlist+=("$string")
        echo "$string"
    fi
done

To append them to a list.

But this doesn't work since the regex matches noting at all. I know there are different kinds of Regex engines and stuff, and I've tried so many different regexes for this to work in bash, but can't seem to get it to work.

Anyone who could help me capture what I want in bash?

Possible duplicate of [Regex (grep) for multi-line search needed](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3717772/regex-grep-for-multi-line-search-needed) — Aserre, Jul 03 '18 at 14:32
If you run `osx`, you'll need to run `brew install grep --with-default-names` and reboot your terminal in order to user the `-P` option for `grep`. If you don't want to install new software, you can also use the `awk` solution proposed in the linked question. — Aserre, Jul 03 '18 at 14:33

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 03 '18 at 14:49

The regex you're looking for is userPos:([^;]*)].

regex="userPos:([^;]*)]"
while [[ $text =~ $regex ]]
do
    string="${x:+x }${BASH_REMATCH[0]}"
    userlist+=("$string")
    echo "$string"
    text=${text#*"${BASH_REMATCH[0]}"}
done

$text is your text.

Multiline Bash Regex Match

1 Answers1