Re: Match on line, read backwards to opening xml tag then forward to closing tag

[mrguy123]

Hi,
I also believe that it is best to use a proper XML parser if you can, but I have encountered similar problems with non XML data, and then you do need to use regexes.
I think this is a nice workaround that will solve your problem (I hope)

use strict;
use warnings;
{
    my ($input_file) = @ARGV;
    open XML, $input_file or die;
    my $xml_data;
    ##Read the XML into xml_data
    while (my $line = <XML>){
        $xml_data .= $line;
    }   
    ##Parse xml_data
    while ($xml_data =~ /<Dataentry>(.*?)<\/Dataentry>/s){
        ##Keep xml block to print if needed
        my $xml_block_to_print = $1;
        my $xml_block_to_parse = $xml_block_to_print;
        $xml_data = $';
        
        ##Parse the xml block, and if we have a match, print!
        while ($xml_block_to_parse =~ /<Data>(.*?)<\/Data>/){
            my $data = $1;
            $xml_block_to_parse = $';
            if ($data eq 'bbbbbb'){
                print "$xml_block_to_print\n";
                last;
            }
        }
    }
}

Please let me know if this works for you
mrguy

"Unix is user friendly - it's just a bit more choosy about who it's friends are."