So I want to search a string, using the below regular expression:
border-.*\.5pt
to find all border-top, border-bottom, etc CSS properties in a file with a border thickness of .5pt. It generally works great, but it's too greedy.
For example all of the below comes back as a single match:
border-top:solid #1F497D .5pt;border-bottom:solid #1F497D .5pt
I want those two CSS properties to be two separate matches.
So I tried to modify my regular expression to:
border-.*?\.5pt
Using ? to make it non-greedy. However, after that modification, nothing matches.
Can anyone explain why I see this behavior? What am I missing?
(If it's worth knowing, I'm using Microsoft Expression Web's 'find with regular expressions' when doing this search.)
There is no one "regular expression" language. While there are broad commonalities, details differ from implementation to implementation. Many regexes use - to be the non-greedy "0 or more", others use *?. Apparently Microsoft Expression Web uses @.
In short, regexes can differ, so you'll often need to RTM for the one you're using to find its range of capabilities and detailed syntax (i.e. support for alteration/backtracking/etc., grouping character, set shorthand, etc.)