Exclude a Substring using Regex in Java

Question

I want to take a string like src=' blah src='' blah and ignore the first src='

Expected results should be: blah src='' blah

I've tried: blah(?!:(src\\s*?=\\s*?))

I've seen other posts on here mentioning ^(...).*$ but I really don't understand how to apply that or really how to work with negation. The java tutorial mentions [^abc], but can that be used for a regular expression too not just characters? e.g. [^src\\s=]

Why does this not work: ^(?!.*(src=)|(src\\s=)).*$ – user817129 Oct 03 '13 at 04:53 — user817129, Oct 03 '13 at 04:53

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 02 '13 at 06:46

0

Simple "src'(.*)" should do the work unless you have more complicated cases:

Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile( "src='(.*)");
Matcher matcher = pattern.match( "src=' blah src='' blah");

if ( matcher.find( )) {
   String result = matcher.group(1); // Here is the extracted string just like you wanted.
}

answered Oct 02 '13 at 06:46

Artem Barger

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I think I get what you're saying here, but doesn't that also match the strings I don't want? I'm trying to apply a concept to a small example so I can understand it for when I tackle the bigger mess I need to face. – user817129 Oct 02 '13 at 06:49

Exclude a Substring using Regex in Java

1 Answers1