Regular Expression matching biggest possible

[petermichaux]

Hi,

I would like to remove comments from a JavaScript file with a Ruby
script. I discovered that my regular expression matching seems to match
the biggest possible substring.

def show_regexp(a,re)
if a =~ re
"#{$`}<<#{$&}>>#{$'}"
else
"no match"
end
end
puts show_regexp("/* some comment */ some code /* some other comment
*/", /\/\*[\w\W]*\*\//)

This outputs

<</* some comment */ some code /* some other comment */>>

and I was hoping for it to find the individual comments.

<</* some comment */>> some code <</* some other comment */>>

What should my regular expression be?

Thanks,
Peter

 

[Chris Alfeld]

You can make a regexp non greedy with a ?, that is

/\/\*[\w\W]*?\*\//
^

 

[petermichaux]

You can make a regexp non greedy with a ?, that is

/\/\*[\w\W]*?\*\//

Thanks Chris,

Now I can easily find what i need in the manual

Peter

 

[Damphyr]

Hi,

I would like to remove comments from a JavaScript file with a Ruby
script. I discovered that my regular expression matching seems to match
the biggest possible substring.

Wow, I only had to wait 20 minutes before posting (or you could have
checked the regexp madness thread).
Seems today is greedy regexp day
V.-

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http://www.braveworld.net/riva

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