Perl Regex: Match all folders except a certain subfolder pattern

Question

Given these folder names:

locales/DE/en    
locales/FR/en
locales/US/en
locales/US/fr
public
test
[...]

I want to match everything EXCEPT the first 2 patterns. There are other folders in the root, and other subfolders in the locales folder. I really want to just exclude everything in locales/* EXCEPT locales/US

This works for locales but fails to include the other root folders.
/(locales)\/(US)/

Any thoughts?

If you allow everything, use `^.*$` and restrict it with a lookahead disallowing the `locales/(?:DE|FR)` at the beginning: [`/^(?!locales\/(?:DE|FR)).*$/`](https://regex101.com/r/vF1fZ3/3). — Wiktor Stribiżew, Mar 02 '16 at 07:53

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 02 '16 at 07:57

3

To match anything EXCEPT locales/US, you can use negative lookahead:

/^(?!locales\/US).*/m

RegEx Demo

answered Mar 02 '16 at 07:57

anubhava

713,503
59
514
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I believe he wants to skip every file in locale i.e `locales/*` except `locale/US`. – Arunesh Singh Mar 02 '16 at 08:19
Based on this line in question `This works for locales but fails to include the other root folders.` I think OP wants to exclude `locales/US` only – anubhava Mar 02 '16 at 08:20
His regex works for `locales`, so he is talking about `public`, `test` as other root folders. – Arunesh Singh Mar 02 '16 at 08:22

Arunesh Singh · Answer 2 · 2016-03-02T08:26:15.967

1

You can use two regular expressions instead of cluttering it up in one. Below is an attempt:

my @folders =
  qw (locales/DE/en locales/FR/en locales/US/en locales/US/fr public test);

foreach (@folders) {
    if (/^locales/) {
        next if ( $_ !~ /^locales\/US/ ); # skip everything except locales/US
    }
    print $_,"\n";
}

edited Mar 02 '16 at 08:26

answered Mar 02 '16 at 08:14

Arunesh Singh

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This is nice, but the point of a regex is to remove verbosity. You want to define a rule and apply it in one line. – AVProgrammer Mar 16 '20 at 03:44

Perl Regex: Match all folders except a certain subfolder pattern

2 Answers2