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What I want

A convenient way (with preview, interactivity) to replace regex multi-line matches across many files

What I already have

I know how to do this for single-line matches. I use counsel-rg, open ivy-occur buffer with C-c o, and can make my edits there.

Multi-line search works, and I can see the replacement candidates, but replacement is painful.

Why what I have is not enough

The crux of the problem is that file-names and line numbers in ivy-occur buffer are read-only, and regex-replace fails if any part of read-only text is matched.

Here's an example of search results ivy-occur for regex :PROPERTIES:\n.*?\n:END::

60 candidates: ./README.org:1::PROPERTIES: ./README.org:2::header-args: :comments link :noweb yes ./README.org:3::END: ./README.org:6::PROPERTIES: ./README.org:7::ID: 41e08286-2ccc-4c5b-b1ed-10d7dde499d3 ./README.org:8::END: ...

I can get creative, and use something like negative look-behind (?<=org:\d*?:) from pcre2el package, to make edits line-by-line and not touching read-only text in the buffer. But this seems like a lot of hoops to jump through for a simple operation.

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  • Doesn't :PROPERTIES:\n.*\n.*:END: match? Commented Mar 12 at 13:28
  • And if you want to match multiple lines between :PROPERTIES: and :END: you need a bit more in the middle: you need to group the .*\n that matches a single line and apply *? or +? on the group. Commented Mar 12 at 14:12
  • 1
    @NickD The problem that I have is not matching per se, the problem is occur buffer. It's created with file names + line numbers, which makes replacement painful. Commented Mar 12 at 14:28
  • Right - I see what you mean but I don't know of a way to do what you want. I hope somebody comes up with a good answer. Commented Mar 14 at 5:17

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