How to match c-style block comments in Notepad++ with a regex?

Question

With the intent to match multiline comments, I found the following regex:

  (?:/\*(?:(?:[^*]|\*(?!/))*)\*/)

It is described here. It isn't perfect (it matches comments inside strings), but it works well enough for my purpose. However, it does not work in Notepad++. I tried escaping different things, but with no better results.

Does anyone know how to make this regex work in Notepad++?

Answer 1

When the question was asked, the correct answer was that you couldn't do this in Notepad++, because its regex flavor didn't support regexes matching over multiple lines and lookahead (both of which are essential in the given regex).

However, Notepad++ has a much more powerful regex engine these days - since version 6.0 it supports full pcre regexes. This means your regex as given in the question just works. As such, I believe the correct answer would now just be "open the search menu, input your regex, choose regex for search mode and click search".