Replace wrong xml-comments with Regex

Question

I am dealing with a bunch of xml files that contain one-line-comments like this: // Some comment. I am pretty sure that xml comments look like this:  I would like to use a regular expression in the Atom editor to find and replace all wrong comment syntax.

according to this question, the comment can be found with (?<=\s)//([^\n\r]*) and replaced with something like . There must be an error somewhere since clicking replace button leaves the comment as is, instaed of replacing it. Actually I can't even replace it with a simple character. The find and replace works with a different regex in the "Find" field:
Find: name.*
Replace: baloon

Is there anything I can write in the "Find" and "Replace" field to achieve this transformation?

If it is Atom, the problem might be with the lookbehind. Try just //([^\n\r]+) and replace wih . If you need to check for the space, try (^|\s)//([^\n\r]+) => $1 — Wiktor Stribiżew
– Wiktor Stribiżew, Commented Apr 6, 2020 at 12:02

Wiktor Stribiżew · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-06 12:14:48Z

1

Atom editor search and replace currently does not support lookbehind constructs, like (?<=\s). To "imitate" it, you may use a capturing group with an alternation between start of string, ^, and a whitespace, \s.

So, you may use

Find What: (^|\s)//([^\n\r]+)
Replace With: $1

See the regex demo. NOTE \s may match newlines, so you may probably want to use (^|[^\S\r\n])//([^\n\r]+) to avoid matching across line breaks.

If you do not need to check for a whitespace, just remove that first capturing group and use a mere:

Find What: //([^\n\r]+)
Replace With: 

See another regex demo.

answered Apr 6, 2020 at 12:14

Wiktor Stribiżew

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