How to make Regular expression into non-greedy?
The non-greedy regex modifiers are like their greedy counter-parts but with a ?
immediately following them:
* - zero or more
*? - zero or more (non-greedy)
+ - one or more
+? - one or more (non-greedy)
? - zero or one
?? - zero or one (non-greedy)
I believe it would be like this
takedata.match(/(\[.+\])/g);
the g
at the end means global, so it doesn't stop at the first match.
You are right that greediness is an issue:
--A--Z--A--Z--
^^^^^^^^^^
A.*Z
If you want to match both A--Z
, you'd have to use A.*?Z
(the ?
makes the *
"reluctant", or lazy).
There are sometimes better ways to do this, though, e.g.
A[^Z]*+Z
This uses negated character class and possessive quantifier, to reduce backtracking, and is likely to be more efficient.
In your case, the regex would be:
/(\[[^\]]++\])/
Unfortunately Javascript regex doesn't support possessive quantifier, so you'd just have to do with:
/(\[[^\]]+\])/
See also
- regular-expressions.info/Repetition
- See: An Alternative to Laziness
- Possessive quantifiers
- Flavors comparison
- See: An Alternative to Laziness
Quick summary
* Zero or more, greedy
*? Zero or more, reluctant
*+ Zero or more, possessive
+ One or more, greedy
+? One or more, reluctant
++ One or more, possessive
? Zero or one, greedy
?? Zero or one, reluctant
?+ Zero or one, possessive
Note that the reluctant and possessive quantifiers are also applicable to the finite repetition {n,m}
constructs.
Examples in Java:
System.out.println("aAoZbAoZc".replaceAll("A.*Z", "!")); // prints "a!c"
System.out.println("aAoZbAoZc".replaceAll("A.*?Z", "!")); // prints "a!b!c"
System.out.println("xxxxxx".replaceAll("x{3,5}", "Y")); // prints "Yx"
System.out.println("xxxxxx".replaceAll("x{3,5}?", "Y")); // prints "YY"