Is there a regex that can search in a group of lines and replace one line within that group?

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for example if I have something like:

<Directory />
  word
  box
  car
</Directory>

Is there a way to make sure using regex that only in that group in the file I can replace box with lets say drive. To make it like:

<Directory />
  word
  drive
  car
</Directory>

The key here is to ensure its in that directory group.
So how would i replace box with drive?

What I have tried:

I have tried using a regex that states:

(<Directory />\s+)box(\s+</Directory>)

and my replace was:

\1drive\2

but the problem here is if there is words above or below box it wont find it.

Posted 19-Jul-18 7:20am

Member 13915429

Updated 19-Jul-18 9:24am

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Patrice T · Answer 1 · 2018-07-19T09:25:00

Quote:
Is there a regex that can search in a group of lines and replace one line within that group?

Short answer: Yes !
Your RegEx: '(<Directory />\s+)box(\s+</Directory>)'
is matching: '<Directory /> box </Directory>'
You need to improve the RegEx to include the newlines and words along with spaces, like replacing \s+ with (\s|\n|\w)+.

Just a few interesting links to help building and debugging RegEx.
Here is a link to RegEx documentation:
perlre - perldoc.perl.org[^]
Here is links to tools to help build RegEx and debug them:
.NET Regex Tester - Regex Storm[^]
Expresso Regular Expression Tool[^]
RegExr: Learn, Build, & Test RegEx[^]
Online regex tester and debugger: PHP, PCRE, Python, Golang and JavaScript[^]
This one show you the RegEx as a nice graph which is really helpful to understand what is doing a RegEx:
Debuggex: Online visual regex tester. JavaScript, Python, and PCRE.[^]
This site also show the Regex in a nice graph but can't test what match the RegEx:
Regexper[^]