Hello monks, I have a file that looks something like this:

<TABLE name="table1">
FieldName1 VARCHAR(20)
FieldName2 INT(20)
FieldName3 BOOL
</TABLE>

<TABLE name="table"2>
FieldName1 VARCHAR(20)
FieldName2 INT(20)
FieldName3 BOOL
</TABLE>
[download]

Now I expect to be able to say:

while ($file =~ s/<TABLE(.*)>([\n.]*)<\/TABLE>//i)
{
    # $1 should equal ' name="table1"'
    my $attributes = $1;

    #$2 should equal
    #
    #FieldName1 VARCHAR(20)
    #FieldName2 INT(20)
    #FieldName3 BOOL
    #
    my $fields     = $2;
}
[download]

What I get is nothing. When I say

$file =~ s/<TABLE(.*)>(\n.*)//i
[download]

Then

$2 = 'FieldName1 VARCHAR(20)'
[download]

- the first line of text. Or:

$file =~ s/<TABLE(.*)>([\n.]*)//i\
[download]

Then

$2 = "\n";
[download]

I know that the . (wildcard) charcater doesn't match newlines, hence using the character class \n. in my original example - does anyone have an answer as to why this doesn't work, and what should I do instead? Thank you!

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