Regex match for a specific pattern excluding a specific pattern

Question

I have sample string as :

'&label=20:01:27&tooltext=abc\&|\|cba&value=6|59|58|89&color=ff0000|00ffff'
'&label=20:01:27&tooltext=abc\&|\|cba&value=6|59|58|89'

My objective is to select the text from 'tooltext=' till the first occurrence of '&' which is not preceded by \\. I'm using the following regex :

/(tooltext=)(.*)([^\\])(&)/

and the .match() function.
It is working fine for the second string but for the first string it is selecting upto the last occurrence of '&' not preceded by \\.

var a = '&label=20:01:27&tooltext=abc\&|\|cba&value=6|59|58|89&color=ff0000|00ffff',
b = a.match(/(tooltext=)(.*)([^\\])(&)(.*[^\\]&)?/i)

result,

b = ["tooltext=abc\&|\|cba&value=40|84|40|62&", "tooltext=", "abc\&|\|cba&value=40|84|40|6", "2", "&"]

But what i need is:

b = ["tooltext=abc&||cba&", "tooltext=", "abc&||cb", "a", "&"]

shA.t · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-28T12:57:24.693

2

I think you can use a regex like this:

/tooltext=(.*?\\&)*.*?&/

[Regex Demo]

and to always found a non-escaped &:

/tooltext=(.*?\\&)*.*?[^\\]&/

edited Jul 28 '16 at 12:57

answered Jul 25 '16 at 03:05

shA.t

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Thanks for the help. – kingshuk basak Jul 25 '16 at 05:07
@shA.t - I'm afraid but it is matching the following text 'value=66,34|77,99&tooltext=av\&,\,|\&\|,^' But ideally it should not because it does not have non escaped & – kingshuk basak Jul 28 '16 at 11:01

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 25 '16 at 03:21

It looks like your regex is matching all the way to the last & instead of the first one without a backslash in front of it. Try adding the ? operator to make it match as small as possible like so:

/(tooltext=)(.*?)([^\\])(&)/

And if you just want the text between tooltext= and &, try this to make it return the important part as the matched group:

/tooltext=(.*?[^\\])&/

Regex match for a specific pattern excluding a specific pattern

2 Answers2