I agree that it would be safer to do this with an XML/DOM parser.
I don't know if this can be done with a Notepad++ plugin (perhaps
some Python or some JS). You could also make a script on your side,
without Notepad++, to do this, in your preferred language.
Regex solution in Notepad++, as asked
But, to let you solve it with a relatively non-efficient regular
expression with the help of Notepad++'s search engine, I would use
the following pattern:
<outer block>(?:.(?!<outer block>))*?Goodbye.*?<\/outer block>
I've modified the ungreedy pattern to match text before the "Goodbye"
you are looking for, by adding a negative lookahead, which checks
after each character if it is not followed by "<outer block>".
Test it live: https://regex101.com/r/yQJYR0/1
As I said, it's not very efficient because it's making a lot of checks.
They might be a cleaner way to write the pattern. A little improvement
could be to change the negative lookahead to match the closing
</outer block> tag instead of an opening one. This would reduce
the number of steps during the search:
<outer block>(?:.(?!<\/outer block>))*?Goodbye.*?<\/outer block>
Test the minor improvement: https://regex101.com/r/yQJYR0/2
It's not a very sexy solution, but at least it quickly solves your
problem without having to write a script or a program.
DOMParser solution in JavaScript
Personally, I find it's a lot of work, compared to the quick and
dirty regular expression. And it doesn't select the text in the
editor. But for the ones that love commenting "Don't use regex,
it's not made for that, use a parser", this would be the safer
solution (except if your XML has errors).
You'll have to run it in full screen to see the results properly.
(function (doc) {
/**
* Escape some text to display it in HTML.
*
* @param {string} rawText The text to escape.
* @return {string} The HTML escaped text.
*/
function escape(rawText) {
const span = doc.createElement("span");
span.innerText = rawText;
return span.innerHTML;
}
doc.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", () => {
const inputTextarea = doc.getElementById("input");
const searchButton = doc.getElementById("search");
const resultsUl = doc.getElementById("results");
// Click handler for the search button.
searchButton.addEventListener("click", () => {
parser = new DOMParser();
// Parse the input XML, wrapping it in a single element.
xmlDoc = parser.parseFromString(
"<document>" + inputTextarea.value + "</document>",
"text/xml"
);
// Check if some errors occured.
const errorNode = xmlDoc.querySelector("parsererror");
if (errorNode) {
alert("Parse error!\n" + errorNode.querySelector("div").innerText);
return;
}
// Search for all inner blocks with an outer block as ancestor.
const innerBlocks = xmlDoc.querySelectorAll("outer-block inner-block");
// The list of outer blocks we want to find.
let foundOuterBlocks = [];
// Loop over each inner block to see if it contains the word "Goodbye".
innerBlocks.forEach((innerBlock, i) => {
if (innerBlock.textContent.match(/\bGoodbye\b/i)) {
// Get the outer block, looping until we find it in the parents.
let parent = innerBlock.parentNode;
while (parent.nodeName !== "outer-block") {
parent = parent.parentNode;
}
foundOuterBlocks.push(parent.outerHTML);
}
});
console.log(foundOuterBlocks);
// Update the results list.
resultsUl.innerHTML = foundOuterBlocks
.map((value) => {
return "<li><pre><code>" + escape(value) + "</code></pre></li>";
})
.join("\n");
});
});
})(document);
form {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
row-gap: .5em;
}
ul#results {
margin: 1em 0;
padding: 0;
list-style: none;
counter-reset: result-nbr;
}
ul#results li::before {
content: "Found item n°" counter(result-nbr) ":";
counter-increment: result-nbr;
display: block;
font-size: .8em;
}
<form action="#">
<textarea name="input" id="input" cols="50" rows="8"><outer-block>
<name>A</name>
<inner-block>Hello</inner-block>
</outer-block>
<outer-block>
<name>B</name>
<inner-block>Hello again</inner-block>
</outer-block>
<outer-block>
<name>C</name>
<inner-block>Goodbye</inner-block>
</outer-block>
<outer-block>
<name>D</name>
<inner-block>Goodbye</inner-block>
</outer-block></textarea>
<input type="button" id="search"
value="search for <outer-block> containing the word 'Goodbye' in a <inner-block>">
</form>
<ul id="results">
</ul>
