So I have this excerpt of the .msg file below. What I wish to do is for all the [sel xxx xxx] headers find them then read the lines below them. If any of the answers contain a (+3) or any (+x) then remove this from the message. Afterwards I want to compare each [sel xxx xxx] block and for the one with the highest (+x) I want to add another tag [clr 4] to it after the initial tags on the line but before the text. If there are two answers with equal (+x) then I wish to add [clr 4] to both lines.

[msg MSG_015_0_0 [Makoto]]
[s][bup 0 6 0 65535 1][f 4 10 65535 0 0][vp 8 0 0 0 65535 0]Dummy[n][f 1 3 65535][w][e]

[sel SEL_016_0_0 top]
[s]A(+3)[e]
[s]B[e]
[s]C(+3)[e]


[msg MSG_021_0_0 [Makoto]]
[s][bup 0 6 0 65535 1][f 4 10 65535 0 0][vp 8 0 0 0 65535 0]Sorry I had to ask something so[n]unreasonable... I appreciate you[n]going along with it, though.[n][f 1 3 65535][w][e]

[sel SEL_023_0_0 top]
[s]Fist! Of! Justice![e]
[s]Report him to the police.[e]
[s][f 0 8 2 1 2217]Try to reach out to her.(+3)[clr 27][e]

So the output should look like this:

[msg MSG_015_0_0 [Makoto]]
[s][bup 0 6 0 65535 1][f 4 10 65535 0 0][vp 8 0 0 0 65535 0]Dummy[n][f 1 3 65535][w][e]

[sel SEL_016_0_0 top]
[s][clr 4]A[e]
[s]B[e]
[s][clr 4]C[e]


[msg MSG_021_0_0 [Makoto]]
[s][bup 0 6 0 65535 1][f 4 10 65535 0 0][vp 8 0 0 0 65535 0]Sorry I had to ask something so[n]unreasonable... I appreciate you[n]going along with it, though.[n][f 1 3 65535][w][e]

[sel SEL_023_0_0 top]
[s]Fist! Of! Justice![e]
[s]Report him to the police.[e]
[s][f 0 8 2 1 2217][clr 4]Try to reach out to her.[clr 27][e]

I’ve been trying to write different pieces of code today but I’m very inexperienced with coding and I can never actually get it to run properly with the desired outcomes. I tried to solve it methodically by:

1. Identifying the [sel headers using regex.
2. Find any instances of (+x) and removing them
3. Prepending [clr 4] before the text of the line with maximum (+x).
4. Writing this back to an output file without any formatting changes (i.e. linebreaks stay the same, headers stay intact and it’s mostly unchanged).

This is my attempt:

import re


def process_block(block):
    # Find all instances of `(+x)` and their positions in the block
    plus_x_matches = re.findall(r'(+(d+))', block)
    if plus_x_matches:
        # Convert the found matches to integers and find the maximum
        max_x = max(map(int, plus_x_matches))
        # Replace all `(+x)` with an empty string
        block = re.sub(r'(+d+)', '', block)
        # Find the position where the maximum `(+x)` was found
        max_x_position = block.rfind(f'(+{max_x})')
        # If `(+x)` was found, insert `[col 4]` before the text
        if max_x_position != -1:
            # Insert `[col 4]` at the position of the max `(+x)`
            block = block[:max_x_position] + '[col 4]' + block[max_x_position:]
    return block


def main():
    # Read input file
    with open('input.msg', 'r') as infile:
        content = infile.read()

    # Split the content into blocks
    blocks = re.split(r'([sel .+? top])', content)

    # Process each block
    result = []
    in_block = False
    current_block = ''
    for part in blocks:
        if part.startswith('[sel'):
            # If there's a previous block to process, do so
            if in_block:
                result.append(process_block(current_block))
                current_block = ''
            # Start a new block
            result.append(part)
            in_block = True
        elif in_block:
            # Append to the current block content
            current_block += part

    # Don't forget to process the last block
    if in_block:
        result.append(process_block(current_block))

    # Write output file
    with open('output.msg', 'w') as outfile:
        outfile.write(''.join(result))


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()