Regular Expression : Match till the ( character or the end of the buffer) but not the character

Question

Given the following contents in the smb.conf file. How to remove the [share_11999] section using boost(perl version) regex. The problem is the section [share_11999] can be at the end of the file.

The following regex almost works except that it removes the "[" of the next section.

"[[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+?][^\[]+?path = /store/11999.*?(\'|\[)"

[share_11920]
path = /store/11920
writeable = yes
create mask = 0755

[share_11999]
path = /store/11999
writeable = yes
create mask = 0755

[share_12435]
path = /store/12435
writeable = yes
create mask = 0755

Basically the problem is to match anything until a character except the character or the end of the buffer.

sshashank124 · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-02T08:31:00.273

3

To answer your general question: "How to match anything until a character except the character?"
You can use the following regex:

"(.*)(?=word)"

This uses the "look ahead / look behind" construct (?=something) to match everything until the certain word and excluding that word.

Example

Test string ==> 'I don't understand the meaning of this word or anything else'
"(.*)(?=word)" applied
'I don't understand the meaning of this'

Demo

http://regex101.com/r/nE4dS6

edited Apr 02 '14 at 08:31

answered Apr 02 '14 at 07:50

sshashank124

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And to be able to research this regex construct, the name of the construct is "positive or negative lookahead / lookbehind" – Mihai Stancu Apr 02 '14 at 07:51
@MihaiStancu, Thank you. I will include that. – sshashank124 Apr 02 '14 at 07:52
@sshashank124 Does the bracing of ".*" is necessary? – Talespin_Kit Apr 02 '14 at 08:23
@Talespin_Kit, Yes, since it tells the script to get everything until the word. – sshashank124 Apr 02 '14 at 08:24
@sshashank124 It seems to work without grouping the ".*". Are you assuming that the match will be used(like "\1") later in the program or i am missing something. – Talespin_Kit Apr 02 '14 at 08:35
@Talespin_Kit, Potentially, besides, it aids readability and future editing. In the end, choice is yours. – sshashank124 Apr 02 '14 at 08:39

Regular Expression : Match till the ( character or the end of the buffer) but not the character

1 Answers1

Example

Demo