Regex match everything between two {}

Question

I was looking at different answers here but unfortunately none of them was good for my case. So I hope you don't mind about it.

So I need to match everything between two curly brackets {} except situation when match starts with @ and without these curly brackets e.g:

"This is a super text {match_this}"
"{match_this}"
"This is another example @{deal_with_it}"

Here are my test strings, 1,2,3 are valid while the last one shouldn't be:

  1   {eww}
  2   r23r23{fetwe}
  3   #{d2dded}
  4   @{d2dded}

I was trying with:

(?<=[^@]\{)[^\}]*(?=\})

Then only 2th and 3th options were matches (without the first one) https://regex101.com/r/qRInUf/2/

Then I was trying:

\{(.*?)\} or [^@]\{(.*?)\}

In both cases I was unable to match 1,2,3 values https://regex101.com/r/uYRtLD/1

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

EDIT: This is for java.

Are you trying to match the character preceding `{` or just the `{x}` part? — ctwheels, Mar 23 '18 at 15:11
@ctwheels It works but in the 2 (r23r23{text}) it creates two groups. Is there a option that will create only one group? — Panczo, Mar 23 '18 at 15:11
you are my hero :) it works You can answer it and I'll mark it as the correct answer — Panczo, Mar 23 '18 at 15:14
One of your patterns would almost have worked. You just need to alternate with `^` start anchor: [`(?:^|[^@])\{([^}]*)}`](http://www.regexplanet.com/share/index.html?share=yyyyye8546r) or with lookbehind `(?<!@)\{([^}]*)}` — bobble bubble, Mar 23 '18 at 15:47

ctwheels · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-23T15:20:20.280

See regex in use here

(?<=(?<!@)\{)[^}]*(?=})

(?<=(?<!@)\{) Positive lookbehind ensuring what precedes matches the following
- (?<!@) Negative lookbehind ensuring what precedes doesn't match @ literally
- \{ Match { literally.
[^}]* Matches any character except } any number of times
(?=}) Positive lookahead ensuring what follows is } literally

Results:

{eww}           # Matches eww
r23r23{fetwe}   # Matches fetwe
#{d2dded}       # Matches d2dded
@{d2dded}       # Does not match this because @ precedes {

O.O.Balance · Answer 2 · 2018-03-23T15:27:34.687

3

Use this regex:

(?<!@\{)(?<=\{).*?(?=\})

A negative lookbehind to assure no @{, a positive lookbehind to assure a { and a positive lookahead to assure a }.

Try it online here.

edited Mar 23 '18 at 15:27

answered Mar 23 '18 at 15:14

O.O.Balance

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`.*` will give incorrect results if two `{}` exist in the same string. See it working incorrectly [here](https://regex101.com/r/ig9rrW/2) – ctwheels Mar 23 '18 at 15:21
1

@ctwheels Thanks for pointing that out. Changed to `.*?`. https://regex101.com/r/5gA4Ji/1 – O.O.Balance Mar 23 '18 at 15:28

Regex match everything between two {}

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