Re: grep can help?

[FCC <fcc509@netscape.net>]

FCC wrote:

> Hello all,
> 
> Here is what I am trying to do: I have fortran90 source files full of 
> comments everywhere. A comment starts with ! and continues until the end 
> of line, and it can start in the middle of a line after some code that 
> gets compiled.
> 
> Initially I was trying to use isearch for a regexp but only to search 
> for those occurences which are not in comments (or which do not appear 
> after the character !). After spending some time with Google, it turned 
> out that this is not possible because one cannot "invert a match", which 
> is what is required here.

OK, I think I solved my problem: replace-regexp "!.*" " " and all the 
comments are gone, and the line numbers are unchanged. Now, the 
resulting file can be saved under a different file name, or the buffer 
could be renamed and the intended regexp search can be performed, either 
with occur or isearch-regexp.

Thanks all anyway.

Best,

FCC.

PS. If there is a better solution, I would like to hear it.