RegEx pattern with not followed by

Question

I want to match only first file path, which not contains word Thumbnails. I use "not-followed by pattern" but it doesn`t work. Could some one take a look and tell me where is my mistake? Here is my regex:

<string>((.*(?!Thumbnails))\.jpg)</string>

Strings

<string>/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/username/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Masters/2012/05/14/20120514-105314/IMG_6204.JPG</string>
<string>/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/username/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Thumbnails/2012/05/14/20120514-105314/IMG_6204.jpg</string>

Alex D · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-10 16:28:39Z

1

Your regexp will match file paths which do not contain "Thumbnails" right before the file extension. You want to prevent it from matching those which contain "Thumbnails" anywhere in the text.

You could try something like:

<string>((?!.*Thumbnails).*?\.jpg)</string>

Or:

<string>((?![^<]*Thumbnails)[^<]*\.jpg)</string>

(That will prevent the regexp engine from going past the closing "<" when searching for "Thumbnails". It will also disallow file paths which contain "<".)

I presume you are matching this against individual lines of text, not against a string which contains multiple lines, right?

answered Sep 10, 2012 at 16:28

Alex D

30.6k7 gold badges85 silver badges131 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Alex Molskiy Over a year ago

Thank you, its works perfect. Yes, Im matching strings which contains 1 line.

rationalboss · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-10 16:51:09Z

0

<string>^((?!Thumbnails).)*$</string>

edited Sep 10, 2012 at 16:51

answered Sep 10, 2012 at 16:28

rationalboss

5,3973 gold badges32 silver badges50 bronze badges

2 Comments

rationalboss Over a year ago

Yes. Probably because I originally wrote "<strong>" instead of "<string>"? :)

Alex D Over a year ago

The ^ and $ are also not needed. Or if you do want them, they should go at the very beginning and end of the regexp. (<string> can't appear before the beginning of the line.) Also, you need to explicitly match the .jpg suffix which the OP expects.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

RegEx pattern with not followed by

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related