Match "ABC" from ABC, but not from ABC

Question

I'm trying to match ABC from *ABC*, but not from **ABC**.

I've this so far;

/[^\*]{1}\*([^\*]+)\*[^\*]+/

The strings to match can be any of the following.

ABC **Don't match this** DEF
ABC *Match this* DEF
*Match this*
**Don't match this**

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 29 '11 at 14:12

6

(?<!\*)\*ABC\*(?!\*)

Which reads out as

*ABC* not preceeded by *, and not succeeded by *.

answered Oct 29 '11 at 14:12

aioobe

2

Or if the flavor does not support lookbehinds (like JavaScript) adding this at the beginning might suffice as well: `(?!.*\*{2})`. – Felix Kling Oct 29 '11 at 14:14
1

Or `\s\*ABC\*\s` if you can assure `*Match this*` will always be preceded and followed by a space. – Ben Oct 29 '11 at 14:15
1

@Felix - that lookahead will fail the regex if any `**` is in the string (`' *ABC* **'` will fail). – Oct 29 '11 at 17:43
@sin: I know, that's why I said it *might* suffice ;) It clearly depends on the possible input. – Felix Kling Oct 29 '11 at 19:45

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 29 '11 at 17:40

1

Your on the right track.
Without assertions: /(?:^|[^*])\*[^*]+*(?:[^*]|$)/
(use aioobe's regex with assertions, or any combination with/without).

answered Oct 29 '11 at 17:40

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 29 '11 at 14:40

0

if the string starts and ends with "*" you could use this:

/^*([^*]+)*$/

answered Oct 29 '11 at 14:40

David

3 Answers3