How to apply lazy quantifier in this given scenario?

Question

I am trying to match an occurrence with the regex:

to(.*?) CITY[\d]

against

John from beautiful CITY1 in sdfsf to dsfs in sf to abc CITY2 to CITY3 for 3 days

I get two matches :

to dsfs in sf to abc CITY2 
to CITY3

My problem is that I want a regular exp using which I could get a match as "to abc CITY2" instead of "to dsfs in sf to abc CITY2".

I read about lazy quantifiers but couldn't apply it in this scenario.

I think you need to change the expression/logic to something like this to(?: \w+)? CITY\d — HamZa
– HamZa, Commented Nov 5, 2014 at 11:22

nu11p01n73R · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-05 11:42:03Z

3

\bto\b(?:(?!\bto\b).)*?CITY\d+

Try this.See demo.

Here we use negative lookahead to ensure the any character after to does not match to.So it will pick the nearest to to City.

(?!\bto\b) negaitve lookahead to not match to

.)* quantifying it

nu11p01n73R

26.8k3 gold badges42 silver badges52 bronze badges

answered Nov 5, 2014 at 11:23

vks

68.1k11 gold badges96 silver badges132 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Thanks, It works. @HamZa has suggested a cleaner regex.