How to stop this regex from being greedy?

Question

I have the following regex http://regexr.com/3d1qb and it is one those that is greedy now I understand why this is happening. But how can I fix this?

Currently it is matching the whole thing as one. But the way I want it is to be matched twice not once.

*What I want is to match them all differently not all of them as one* could you add an **explicit** desired output ? — Thomas Ayoub, Mar 18 '16 at 13:48

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 18 '16 at 13:53

1

A regexp is not the right tool for parsing html. This one works for the examples, but it will not work with a real html:

(<a href="https:\/\/www.example.com\/finance-glossary.*?">)([^<]*)(<\/a>)

For example, in your test, the first <a.*?href can match anything until a href is found, in any element, attribute or text. It's just not something you should do with a regex.

http://regexr.com/3d1qh

answered Mar 18 '16 at 13:53

Jérémie B

10,611
1
26
43

Hmm you are right I will take it in consideration, thank you. – Steve Mar 18 '16 at 13:59

How to stop this regex from being greedy?

1 Answers1