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<h1>Pragmatic Regular Expression Exclude</h1>
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<p>Sometimes you cannot simply write:</p>
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<code class="ruby"> if str.match(regexp) and not str.match(other_regexp) do_something </code>
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<p>and you have to make this behaviour with only one regular expression. But, there exists a major problem: the complementary of a regular language might not be regular. Then, for some expression it is absolutely impossible to negate a regular expression.</p>
<p>But sometimes with some simple regular expression it should be possible<sup><a href="#note1"></a></sup>. Say you want to match everything containing the some word say <code>bull</code> but dont want to match <code>bullshit</code>. Here is a nice way to do that:</p>
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<p><code class="ruby"> # match all string containing bull (bullshit comprised) /bull/</p>
<h1 id="match-all-string-containing-bull-except-bullshit">match all string containing bull except bullshit</h1>
<p>/bull([^s]|<span class="math inline">)|<em>b</em><em>u</em><em>l</em><em>l</em><em>s</em>([<sup><em>h</em></sup>]|</span>)| bullsh([^i]|<span class="math inline">)|<em>b</em><em>u</em><em>l</em><em>l</em><em>s</em><em>h</em><em>i</em>([<sup><em>t</em></sup>]|</span>)/</p>
<h1 id="another-way-to-write-it-would-be">another way to write it would be</h1>
/bull([^s]|<span class="math inline">|<em>s</em>([<sup><em>h</em></sup>]|</span>)|sh([^i]|<span class="math inline">)|<em>s</em><em>h</em><em>i</em>([<sup><em>t</em></sup>]|</span>))/ </code>
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<p>Let look closer. In the first line the expression is: <code>bull([^s]|$)</code>, why does the <code>$</code> is needed? Because, without it the word <code>bull</code> would be no more matched. This expression means:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The string finish by <code>bull</code><br />
or,<br />
contains <code>bull</code> followed by a letter different from <code>s</code>.</p>
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<p>And this is it. I hope it could help you.</p>
Notice this method is not always the best. For example try to write a regular expression equivalent to the following conditional expression:
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<code class="ruby"> # Begin with a: ^a # End with a: c$ # Contain b: .<em>b.</em> # But isnt axbxc if str.match(/^a.<em>b.</em>c<span class="math inline">/)<em>a</em><em>n</em><em>d</em><em>n</em><em>o</em><em>t</em><em>s</em><em>t</em><em>r</em>.<em>m</em><em>a</em><em>t</em><em>c</em><em>h</em>(/<sup><em>a</em></sup><em>x</em><em>b</em><em>x</em><em>c</em></span>/) do_something end </code>
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<p>A nice solution is:</p>
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<code class="ruby"> /abc| # length 3 a.bc| # length 4 ab.c| a[^x]b[^x]c| # length 5 a…<em>b.</em>c| # length &gt;5 a.<em>b…</em>c/ </code>
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<p>This solution uses the maximal length of the string not to be matched. There certainly exists many other methods. But the important lesson is it is not straightforward to exclude something of a regular expression.</p>
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<p><small><a name="note1"></a> It can be proved that any regular set minus a finite set is also regular. </small></p>
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Published on 2010-02-15
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