How to replace the first matching for each line with regular expression

Question

Saying that I have such a file as below:

<random_string>hello<random_string>
random_string<random_string>hello<random_string>

I want to remove the first square bracket and its content so that the file becomes:

hello<random_string>
random_stringhello<random_string>

How could I achieve this?

I've tried to execute :%s/<.*>// but it will remove all things I think it's because it matches the last > for each line.

Possible duplicate of How to make regex matchers non-greedy? — Mass, May 20 '19 at 12:38
I'm not sure if this is a duplicate, as the other question assumes you know what "non-greedy" means, where as this one doesn't. — Martin Tournoij, May 21 '19 at 02:09

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 20 '19 at 13:08

4

I guess this would be the easiest solution:

%s/<[^>]*>//

It matches:

Of course the other solution is to use a non greedy operator as in the question linked by @Mass like this:

%s/<.\{-}>//

edited May 20 '19 at 13:08

Ralf

answered May 20 '19 at 13:04

statox

1 Answers1