RE: Select Text Inside Parentheses

[Drew Adams]

> > "(\\(\s-\\|[\n]\\)*\\(.+\\)\\(\s-\\|[\n]\\)*)" nil t)
> 
> This is supposed to be 
> "(\\(\\s-\\|[\n]\\)*\\(.+\\)\\(\\s-\\|[\n]\\)*)" nil t)
> , right? 

Right, sorry.  I showed it correctly (\\s-, not \s-) in the detailed rundown
that followed.

> >     (goto-char (match-beginning 2))
> >     (push-mark nil 'nomsg 'activate)
> >     (goto-char (match-end 2))
> >     (setq deactivate-mark  nil)))
> 
> This doesn't seem to do anything.

Did you try with \\s- instead of \s-?

What that code, which you say does nothing, does is to set the mark where the
2nd subgroup-match starts, then move point to where the 2nd subgroup-match ends,
then ensure that the mark remains active after the command.

> nothing seems to happen when I run this code.
> No selection is made.

Works for me.  Be sure you corrected the typo from \s- to \\s-.
And be sure you have `transient-mark-mode' turned on.

But again, this is not a real parsing of lists, so there is no treatment of,
say, nested lists.  The \\S-+ matches any non-whitespace chars, including ( and
).  So using it on (foo (bar))) selects "foo (bar))": everything between the
first ( and the last ).

If you want to handle lists correctly (e.g. nesting) then use the Elisp
functions for traversing or parsing lists/sexps.

And as I say, perhaps someone else will help you more, or differently.