This is a little off topic, but I figured there's a few [emacs|vi|perl|sed] people here that could help me out. I have an xml file with lines like this: example line: <field type="string">value</field><orig_field>value</orig_field> basicly it's storing fields with their datatypes and original values. I need to search this file for lines that the values match (or don't match). here's my regexp: /<(.*) type=\".*\">((.|\n)*)<\/\1><orig_\1>\2<\/orig_\1>/ I need to do this in 3 languages (javascript, vbscript-asp, and php) My problem is with multi line data, I can match the multiline initialy, but the "\2" won't work with it, but if it's all on one line it works fine. e.g.: regexp: /<(.*) type=\".*\">((.|\n)*)<\/\1><orig_\1><\/orig_\1>/ matches: <field type="string">value value</field><orig_field></orig_field> regexp: /<(.*) type=\".*\">((.|\n)*)<\/\1><orig_\1>\2<\/orig_\1>/ doesn't match: <field type="string">value value</field><orig_field>value value</orig_field> Any idea on what I'm doing wrong? Thanks in advance for the help. Chris Frederick _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list