3

Following is sample text.

Header
This is test, and
mid line adsf
bag a lot of many things
shoes>
shoes/
This line should not be affected.
Neither this line.
This is test, and
mid line
bag a lot of many things
shoes>
shoes/
Footer

Need to replace/remove lines where text starts with This is test and ends with 

shoes>
shoes/

using Emacs 26.1

Newbie to RegEx (emacs), following were my trials, failed to select multiple instance. 

(This is test).*(shoes/)
^This is test.*shoes/$

Expected output is

Header
This line should not be affected.
Neither this line.
Footer
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1 Answer 1

Reset to default
8

You can use the following regexp

This is test\(.*\n\)+?shoes>\nshoes/\n
  • .*\n matches a line
  • +? matches multiple lines in non-greedy way

Using the regexp in C-M-s (isearch-forward-regexp):

enter image description here

Note: to enter \n in the minibuffer of Isearch, use C-q C-j. As you can see, Isearch renders it as something like ^J.

When the matching is expected, to delete the matched text, type M-% (isearch-query-replace) to switch to Query-Replace, and type RET to supply an empty replacement, then type ! to replace all matches. In the end, you will get:

enter image description here

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