I need to make multiples re-search'es in a buffer.
But when the last re-search fails, the match-data still contains the former result.
foo-bar-baz
(progn
(goto-char (point-min))
(re-search-forward "^foo-\\(.*\\)-baz" nil t)
(message "step 1: %S '%s'" (match-data) (match-string-no-properties 1))
;; => step 1: (#<marker at 1 in *scratch*> #<marker at 12 in *scratch*> #<marker at 5 in *scratch*> #<marker at 8 in *scratch*>) ’bar’
(goto-char (point-min))
(re-search-forward "^baz-\\(.*\\)-foo" nil t)
(message "step 2: %S '%s'" (match-data) (match-string-no-properties 1))
;; => step 2: (#<marker at 1 in *scratch*> #<marker at 12 in *scratch*> #<marker at 5 in *scratch*> #<marker at 8 in *scratch*>) ’bar’
;; expected no match-data
)
I don't get how to use set-match-data and need to know when the last re-search don't matches.
Any advise on a lispy way to do such re-searches ?
Setting NOERROR to t seems to the root cause but clearer than excpecting errors everywhere in my re-searches.
According to @Drew suggestion save-match-data give an all new match-data just as I wanted:
foo-bar-baz
(progn
(save-match-data
(goto-char (point-min))
(re-search-forward "^foo-\\(.*\\)-baz" nil t)
(message "step 1: %S" (match-string-no-properties 1)))
;; => step 1 : "bar"
(save-match-data
(goto-char (point-min))
(re-search-forward "^baz-\\(.*\\)-foo" nil t)
(message "step 2: %S" (match-string-no-properties 1)))
;; => step 2: no nil
)