From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail
From: Cecil Westerhof <Cecil@decebal.nl>
Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help
Subject: How to combine these two regular expressions
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2012 16:57:18 +0200
Organization: Decebal Computing
Message-ID: <87d32w88fl.fsf@Compaq.site>
NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1344783615 29488 80.91.229.3 (12 Aug 2012 15:00:15 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2012 15:00:15 +0000 (UTC)
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Aug 12 17:00:16 2012
Return-path: <help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org>
Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org
Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17])
	by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69)
	(envelope-from <help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org>)
	id 1T0ZeG-00045u-Rs
	for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 12 Aug 2012 17:00:12 +0200
Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33705 helo=lists.gnu.org)
	by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71)
	(envelope-from <help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org>)
	id 1T0ZeF-0005xn-Si
	for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 12 Aug 2012 11:00:11 -0400
Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!goblin2!goblin.stu.neva.ru!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
Original-Lines: 39
Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: lYLrXPFpjyZ8237ODaoN+w.user.speranza.aioe.org
Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org
User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.3 (gnu/linux)
X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2
Cancel-Lock: sha1:GBh8s1fR2yvoCU6FnfT2qAm+UPo=
X-Homepage: http://www.decebal.nl/
Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:193950
X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14
Precedence: list
List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs.gnu.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/options/help-gnu-emacs>,
	<mailto:help-gnu-emacs-request@gnu.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs>
List-Post: <mailto:help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
List-Help: <mailto:help-gnu-emacs-request@gnu.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs>,
	<mailto:help-gnu-emacs-request@gnu.org?subject=subscribe>
Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org
Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org
Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:86318
Archived-At: <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help/86318>

I was asked by someone for a regular expression that could combine
several search patterns, so that a file only needs to be scanned ones
and not several times. I was partly successful, but I still need two
passes.

I now have the following code:
    (defun dcbl-search-heading ()
      (interactive)
      (re-search-forward "\\(.
    \\)\\(

    \\)\\(.+
    \\)\\(
    ?.+
    \\)" nil t)
      (replace-match "\\1
    #heading#
    \\4"))

    (defun dcbl-search-heading2 ()
      (interactive)
      (re-search-forward "\\(.
    \\)\\(
    \\)\\(.+
    \\)\\(\\\(.+
    \\\)+\\)" nil t)
      (replace-match "\\1
    #heading#
    \\4"))

Is there a way to combine those regular expressions to one?

By the way, if the used expressions could be optimised, let me know. I
do not make them often, thus maybe I do things sub-optimal here.

-- 
Cecil Westerhof
Senior Software Engineer
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilwesterhof