Regex to match xrefs

[gbv34]

Hello,
I use the following grep command to find xref elements, whatever their reference filenames are.

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grep -ri 'xref href="[^"]\+"/>' *

This works well. However, when I want to use the expression solely in Oxygen, I don't get any results.

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xref href="[^"]\+"/>

image.png

Do you have any idea of the formatting or request to make it work?
Any feedback is welcome. Thanks a lot

[Radu]

Hi,
How about if you uncheck the "Enable XML search options" checkbox? Because this checkbox splits the XML content in intervals but your search string spans both element names and attribute values, so it's not something which for example matches just inside an attribute value.

Regards,
Radu

[gbv34]

Hi Radu
Thanks for your answer. Unselecting this option didn't help to retrieve the elements.
Even within a topic, it doesn't seem to work although I have one xref element under my eyes.
I'll continue looking if there are other options that could help.

image.png

[Radu]

Hi,

This works for me in Oxygen:

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<xref href="[^"]+"/>

Your original attempt escaped the "\+" sign meaning that it was searched as a literal + sign.
Also why not search directly for "<xref" with or without regexp?

Regards,
Radu

[gbv34]

Problem solved!
I used this expression

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xref href="[^"]+.dita"\>

and I deactivated the XML search options.
Thanks for your help

[chrispitude]

Hi gbv34,

You might want to test that on an <xref> that wraps within the element:

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<xref
href="foo.dita"
/>

If that does not match, consider something like

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xref\s+href="[^"]+.dita"\s*\>

as there can be cases where the opening tag and even the closing bracket can be word-wrapped onto another line (although perhaps not in your DITA source, but definitely in ours).

[gbv34]

This is an excellent tip, Chris! Thank you!