I don't recognize the format either, so I'll just provide a substitution to transform the cell tags in a line, according to your example. s,\[_CELL_\]\s*(.*?)\s*?(?=\[_CELL_\]|$),<CELL>$1</CELL>,g; This matches from an opening [_CELL_] up to the next opening [_CELL_] or the end of the line, and sticks in the opening and closing <CELL> tags, swallowing any leading and trailing whitespace.

This substitution may need to be adjusted based on the details of the actual format.

In reply to Re: Transforming strange format to XML by chipmunk
in thread Transforming strange format to XML by Tortue

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