Regex for matching a pair of double pipes with differing inner content

Question

How do I match a pair of double pipes (i.e. || text ||), while checking the content between the pipes for a singular pipe?

So, || text || matches " text ", while || spoiler2|spoiler|| matches " spoiler2|spoiler".

I've tried \|\|([^\|]+)\|\|, but that only matches the content without any further pipes between the two pipes.

You could try `\|\|(.*?)\|\|`. This will match anything between a pair of two pipes, but non-greedy (the `?` after the `*`), so as few characters as possible. — Christoph Herold, Apr 16 '19 at 13:07
That works perfectly. I never thought of non-greedy. Thanks for your help! — Alex, Apr 16 '19 at 13:09

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 16 '19 at 13:13

0

You can use a negative lookahead to ignore a pattern:

\|\|((?!\|\|).+)\|\|

The (?!\|\|) means to not match a || string.

answered Apr 16 '19 at 13:13

Simon Doppler

This is a wrong pattern that will match all chars from `||` (not followed with `||`) till the last occurrence of `||`. – Wiktor Stribiżew Apr 16 '19 at 14:01

1 Answers1