Re: Perl RE; how to capture, and replace based on a block?

[GrandFather]

Don't do that. As a general thing correctly parsing and editing XML is tricky. Use a module such as XML::Twig to do the hard work for you.

If you'd provided sample code, input data and expected output most likely someone would show you how to use an appropriate module to do the job.

[taint]

Ahh. I see. I didn't have any code (other than the RE I was using). Because, at this point, if I can't even match the block. There would be no point in attempting to replace. So I hadn't bothered to attempt to replace anything yet. I'm still trying to figure out how to correctly match what I need.

Just seemed the logical progression, in learning to do it. :)

Thanks GrandFather, for the reply (and suggestion).

--Chris

[AnomalousMonk]

I agree that use of an XML parser is likely to be a better idea, but just an example of what your fellow monks were hoping for as an example of what you tried and what resulted (except this works):

>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $s = qq{xxx </div>\n</body> xxx};
 print qq{[[$s]]};
 ;;
 my $tags = qr{ </div> \n </body> }xms;
 $s =~ s{ $tags }{gone}xms;
 print qq{[[$s]]};
"
[[xxx </div>
</body> xxx]]
[[xxx gone xxx]]

Question: Are you sure it's only a single newline that's present? The presence of other whitespace characters than just a newline can confuse the issue. The following might be a better regex:
    qr{ </div> \s* </body> }xms