In your regex you could specify \n to indicate a newline. (Play with this; your file might contain \r or a control-character as a line separator.)

So, for example, you could have  if /.+FIRST.+\n.+SECOND.+\n.+THIRD.+\n.+FOURTH/

which would only match a string spanning four lines, the first containing FIRST, the second containing SECOND, etc.
This is my first attempt at helping out, so I apologize in advance. 8-)

In reply to Re: How to match and transform a multiline pattern? by apl
in thread How to match and transform a multiline pattern? by nbhatia

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