The pattern I provided is an excerpt from what we use in FoxInCloud Adaptation Assistant to work with any code page worldwide.

As I cut it out of a longer pattern, I may have mismatched parentheses.

FWIW we have patterns to match almost anything in a VFP program like define class, method parameters, method and function calls, and more, all packed in a single class.

If you need a broad and bullet-proof approach, it might be useful to you; let me know

>Thanks for the ideas.
>
>VFP barked at the embedded '&', but work that out. Then RegExp threw a COM error when executing. it. Is the hex character for international letter sets necessary.
>
>>Hi Greg,
>>
>>Looking at modify class _regexp of Ffc\_regexp.vcx method execute, it misses the multiline option.
>>

>>LParameters tcStr, tlCaseMatters
>>
>>Local loRegEx, loMatch, loMatches, i
>>
>>loRegEx = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
>>loRegEx.pattern = this.pattern
>>loRegEx.ignoreCase = !tlCaseMatters
>>loRegEx.global = .T.
>>
>>loMatches = loRegEx.execute(tcStr)
>>Dimension this.matches[Max(loMatches.count,1),2]
>>taMatchInfo = .F.
>>
>>i = 1
>>For Each loMatch In loMatches
>>	this.matches[i, 1] = loMatch.firstIndex + 1   && fox strings are not zero-based
>>	this.matches[i, 2] = loMatch.value
>>	i = i + 1
>>EndFor
>>
>>loMatches = .F.
>>loRegEx = .F.
>>
>>Return i -1
>>

>>
>>You need to instantiate "VBScript.RegExp" yourself:
>>

>>loRegEx = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
>>loRegEx.pattern = this.pattern
>>loRegEx.ignoreCase = !tlCaseMatters
>>loRegEx.global = .T.
>>loRegEx.multiline = .T.
>>

>>
>>Then this pattern should work:
>>

>>(^[ \t]*(?=[_\u0041-\u005A\u005F\u0061-\u007A\u00C0-\u00D6\u00D8-\u00F6\u00F8-\u00FF\u0152-\u0153\u0160-\u0161\u0178\u0192#@&=\?\.\\](?!&))(?:(?:HIDD(?:E|EN)?|PROT(?:E|EC|ECT|ECTE|ECTED)?)(?:[ \t]+|(?:[ \t]*;\s*?(?=&&|$).*?$\s+)))*(?:FUNC(?:T|TI|TIO|TION)?|PROC(?:E|ED|EDU|EDUR|EDURE)?)
>>

>>
>>
>>
>>>Have been trying to construct a Regular Expression pattern to find a string that only exists at the beginning of a line, even if there are none or more white spaces before it (either spaces or tabs).
>>>
>>>Example text I'm search
>>>
>>>

>>>DEFINE CLASS test
>>>	PROCEDURE init
>>>		IF ATC("DEFINE CLASS",x)>0
>>>		*
>>>		ENDIF 
>>>		IF ATC("PROCEDURE",x)>0
>>>		*
>>>		ENDIF 
>>>	ENDPROC
>>>	PROCEDURE destroy
>>>	ENDPROC
>>>ENDDEFINE 
>>>

>>>
>>>If I am look for the "DEFINE CLASS" (ignoring the case), I would like for it to find only the "DEFINE CLASS test". Also, If I am looking for "PROCEDURE", I want it to find only the "PROCEDURE init" and "PROCEDURE destory", not the one in the ATC().
>>>
>>>Here is a example of the search code I am trying.
>>>
>>>

>>>RegExp = NEWOBJECT( "_RegExp", "RegExp.vcx" )
>>>ctext=FILETOSTR("tt.prg")
>>>? RegExp.execute( ctext, [(\bdefine class\b)], .F., .T.)
>>>? RegExp.execute( ctext, [(\bprocedure\b)], .F., .T.)
>>>

>>>
>>>I realize I need to be including the '^' (start of line), possibly '\s*' for the white spaces. but when I do include them the query fails to find anything. I only want it to find matches that are at the beginning of the lines.