Having trouble with regular expressions

[Mike...]

Hi,

I'm trying out the program and can't get a regular expression to work.

I want to batch replace the following (an example):

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light.9 =  7, -16.874, -30.5, 1.25 , fx_nicksmokeAI_sm_lear           // Engine 1 
light.10 = 7, -19.024, -15.0, 0    , fx_nicksmokeAI_sm_lear           // Engine 2 
light.11 = 7, -19.024,  15.0, 0    , fx_nicksmokeAI_sm_lear           // Engine 3 
light.12 = 7, -16.874,  30.5, 1.25 , fx_nicksmokeAI_sm_lear           // Engine 4

Into:

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// light.9 =  7, -16.874, -30.5, 1.25 , fx_nicksmokeAI_sm_lear           // Engine 1 
// light.10 = 7, -19.024, -15.0, 0    , fx_nicksmokeAI_sm_lear           // Engine 2 
// light.11 = 7, -19.024,  15.0, 0    , fx_nicksmokeAI_sm_lear           // Engine 3 
// light.12 = 7, -16.874,  30.5, 1.25 , fx_nicksmokeAI_sm_lear           // Engine 4

So basically I want to add "// " in front of every line that contains "fx_nicksmokeAI", that's the only part that sets it apart from other lines I don't want to change. The first number ranges from 0 - 19, the second is always 7, but it's not unique to lines I want to change. After that there are always three groups, the numbers can vary, positive, negative, can be 0, no decimals, 5 decimals, more, etc... After "AI" there are several combinations possible. And finally, the amount of spaces used varies from file to file.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Mike...]

Okay, after taking RegEx 101, I've come up with:

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(light\.\d+\s*=\s*7\s*,\s*[-]?\d+\.?\d*\s*,\s*[-]?\d+\.?\d*\s*,\s*[-]?\d+\.?\d*\s*,\s*fx_nicksmokeAI_\w+[_]?\w*\s*[/]*\s*engine\s*\d)

Which works quite well. I've only got to tinker with the part after nicksmokeAI to accept some other variations, but that shouldn't be too difficult now.

And after some more learning and tweaking, here's the final result:

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(light\.?\d+\s*=\s*7\s*,\s*[-]?\d+(\.\d*)?\s*,\s*[-]?\d+(\.\d*)?\s*,\s*[-]?\d+(\.\d*)?\s*,\s*fx_nicksmokeAI_\w*([-_]?\w*)\s*(//\s*[engine]*\s*\d*)?)

The simulated runs show that the above expression finds everything it needs to find, so I'm happy. Couldn't have done it without Expresso, neat little program.