Regex Negation on part of word

Question

I'm doing a regex search through about 20,000 HTML files using SublimeText and trying to find out of certain CSS classes exist or not. Unfortunately, some classes are similarly named and I want to ignore those ones. For example, I'm looking for files that contain the class "refine search" but not ones that contain "txt_refine_search".

I tried refine_search(?!txt_refine_search) but it still found "txt_refine_search".

What query should I be using?

Why are you using RegEx if you are trying to match an exact name? — Eric J., Oct 27 '15 at 18:15
This is just a small example, I have dozens of searches to do so I'm using regex to get through the list quicker — Kevin, Oct 27 '15 at 18:30

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 27 '15 at 18:30

4

Your example of refine_search(?!txt_refine_search) searches for refine_search followed by txt_refine_search. As you found out, that won't work.

You may want to try a negative lookbehind. Sublime Text uses the PCRE flavor of regex, which does support lookbehind statements. It would look like (?<!txt_)refine_search and it would find refine_search not preceded by txt_.

edited Oct 27 '15 at 18:30

Steven Doggart

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answered Oct 27 '15 at 18:17

Javier Conde

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Please edit your answer. There is no solution on it. I can see that it was a typo problem. – Jorge Campos Oct 27 '15 at 18:18
Done :) it was a problem with the < – Javier Conde Oct 27 '15 at 18:19
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Thats great! Try to use the backticks next time! I've edited it! Take a look! – Jorge Campos Oct 27 '15 at 18:20
Nice answer. You beat me to it :) I took the liberty of clarifying your answer a little further. Welcome to SO! Hope to see you around in the future... – Steven Doggart Oct 27 '15 at 18:23
Thank you Steven, I started yesterday, see you around :) – Javier Conde Oct 27 '15 at 18:26

Regex Negation on part of word

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