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I'm struggling with regular expression. I test it out using this so its not my code (not yet :P). So, i have a long and nasty string, looks more or less like that:


<im a really nasty string from hell/>
<still a nasty string from hell/>
<oh, this is part i need/><
<im a really nasty string from hell/>

what i want:


<oh, this is part i need/>

i try to catch it with that:

(&#xA\;<)(.|\n|\t)*?(need)(.|\n|\t)*?(\/>)

but it catches to much.. like that:


<im a really nasty string from hell/>
<still a nasty string from hell/>
<oh, this is part i need/>

so end part works as intended, but it grabs to much at the beginning, and I'm not sure why.

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  • Put this (.|\n|\t)*?(need)(.|\n|\t)*? in another Subpattern ((.|\n|\t)*?(need)(.|\n|\t)*?). Commented Jul 2, 2017 at 17:36
  • Nop, this still catches to much. I also tried ((&#xA\;<)(.|\n|\t)*?).(need)(.|\n|\t)*?(\/>) but its still grabs to much. Commented Jul 2, 2017 at 17:45
  • Do you know what characters should be matched or should not be matched? If yes, then it is easy. Commented Jul 2, 2017 at 17:55
  • Not characters, groups of those yes, but not single char :) Commented Jul 2, 2017 at 18:06

1 Answer 1

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You could require that your captured string does not include a slash:


<([^\/]*?need[\S\s]*?)\/>

Or, alternatively, you could allow slashes, but not >. In that case do:


<((?:(?!\/>)[\S\s])*?need[\S\s]*?)\/>

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thank you, that second solution did the trick, and i can use it in all use-cases that i have.

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