What's wrong with this regex?

crutledge · 05-11-2010, 10:33 AM

This seems to be a pretty generic regex, but the Find/Replace dialog reports "The search term cannot be found." It works in EditpadPro so either the flavor must be wrong or I'm setting up the Find/Replace incorrectly. Regular expression is ticked.

<SPAN\s+class\s*=\s*pagenum>[^~]+?</SPAN>

So many new things to learn.

Valloric · 05-11-2010, 01:49 PM

You are using non-greedy quantifiers (the "[^~]+?" part). As the manual states, that is not supported. Use the "Minimal matching" option. In time, the current regex engine will be replaced with PCRE which supports such constructs.

I really do suggest that people read the manual.

05-11-2010, 10:33 AM	#1
crutledge eBook FANatic Posts: 18,301 Karma: 16071131 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Alabama, USA Device: HP ipac RX5915 Wife's Kindle	What's wrong with this regex? This seems to be a pretty generic regex, but the Find/Replace dialog reports "The search term cannot be found." It works in EditpadPro so either the flavor must be wrong or I'm setting up the Find/Replace incorrectly. Regular expression is ticked. *<SPAN\s+class\s=\spagenum>[^~]+?</SPAN>* So many new things to learn.

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05-11-2010, 01:49 PM	#2
Valloric Created Sigil, FlightCrew Posts: 1,982 Karma: 350515 Join Date: Feb 2008 Device: Kobo Clara HD	You are using non-greedy quantifiers (the "[^~]+?" part). As the manual states, that is not supported. Use the "Minimal matching" option. In time, the current regex engine will be replaced with PCRE which supports such constructs. I really do suggest that people read the manual.

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