How to write RegEx which starts and ends on different lines, these lines include one matching word only inside

Question

I want to replace a code group of 3 lines on the same file and on other fi les by using notepad++ find & replace feature with regular expressions (regex) Only thing in common on these lines which i want to select is they include the same word "mailicon4.gif" on the last line, and i want to select all the last line, and i want that the selection starts with "a class=" tag which comes 2-3 lines earlier. I copied the part i want to select with find and replace with "" to delete it.

I already tried such a code for example: ?maili.?$\R

It selects the last paragraph but doesn't start with the last "

    <a class="nonblock nontext" id="u209382" href="mailto:info@example.com">
      <!-- rasterized frame --><img class="temp_no_img_src" id="u209382_img" alt="" width="66" height="66"
        data-orig-src="images/mailicon4-u209382.png?crc=143036675" src="images/mailicon4.gif?crc=4208392903" /></a>

Can you make your target text more specific? It is somewhat vague/open right now. — Tim Biegeleisen, Jan 01 '19 at 11:06
[Parsing HTML with regex is hard job](https://stackoverflow.com/a/4234491/372239) HTML and regex are not good friends. Use a parser, it is simpler, faster and much more maintainable. See: http://php.net/manual/en/class.domdocument.php — Toto, Jan 01 '19 at 11:06
@TimBiegeleisen the code part, which i want to select and replace is exactly which i pasted above, i want my regex code capture all these 3 lines starting with "" and only word in common is "maili" on the last line of these 3 lines — 0HE, Jan 01 '19 at 11:13

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 01 '19 at 11:28

Ctrl+F
Find what: <a (?:(?!</a>).)*mailicon4\.gif.*?</a>
Replace with: $1 # a space then $1
check Wrap around
check Regular expression
CHECK . matches newline

Explanation:

<a                  # start tag
(?:(?!</a>).)*      # 0 or more any character, but not </a>
mailicon4\.gif      # literally
.*?                 # 0 or more any character, not greedy
</a>                # literally

Demo

How to write RegEx which starts and ends on different lines, these lines include one matching word only inside

1 Answers1