Javascript regex all characters up till word

Question

I have a strings like this:

blah-ha-ID:
asdf

I want to match all characters up till the final -ID:

So my initial regex was:

^[^-]+

This worked until words starting have hypnes in them. So in the example above, in blah-ha-ID: it would select up till blah when it should have got blah-ha.

So I was trying something like this, i want to repeat all characters that are not -ID

^[^-ID]+

But of course that wont work. I can't use capturing, and I need it to exclude the final -ID

More then workarounds I was hoping to learn how to do this, i recall there was a way to repeat up till a "word" in these character classes.

Thanks @hindmost but I need to use this in a simple replace. Without going capturing and using function replace. — Noitidart
– Noitidart, Commented Sep 24, 2015 at 16:26
You can still use lastIndexOf to replace. substr/substring will help. — hindmost
– hindmost, Commented Sep 24, 2015 at 16:29
@hindmost i think problem with lastIndexOf is what if doesnt have the -ID in there? — Noitidart
– Noitidart, Commented Sep 24, 2015 at 16:43

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-24 16:46:54Z

1

You can use this regex:

/^(.+?)(?=-ID|$)/

This will match 1 or more characters from start to literal -ID or line end. -ID is in a positive lookahead so it won't be matched.

RegEx Demo

edited Sep 24, 2015 at 16:46

answered Sep 24, 2015 at 16:24

anubhava

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9 Comments

Noitidart Over a year ago

Thanks Anubhava, but i need it to not select the -ID at the end :( And I cant use capuring :(

Noitidart Over a year ago

Thanks for your edit it works for my case but is it possible to do my gorup thing? I was hoping to learn it if possible.

Noitidart Over a year ago

There was some trick like [^-[^I[^D]]]] but Ill accept your solution as soon as stack allows me.

anubhava Over a year ago

That kind of trick becomes very clumsy for longer text so I would suggest that only when lookahead isn't available.

Noitidart Over a year ago

Ah the problem with this, is that if it doesnt have -ID at the end it comes with no match :(

|

Shawn Mehan · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-24 16:52:20Z

1

This works for all test cases

^.*(?=-ID)|.*[^-ID:]

where I have added the degenerate case of -ID: on a line by itself.

edited Sep 24, 2015 at 16:52

answered Sep 24, 2015 at 16:47

Shawn Mehan

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1 Comment

Noitidart Over a year ago

Thank you this is so interesting

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