From: luke <l.d.u.n.c.a.l.f.e@...> (dot)
Date: 2005-09-05T08:51:27+09:00
Subject: Making my Regex less greedy?


Hi,

I'm working on a regular expression that will chop a posted message in half,
but chop it on a new paragraph break. I've decided it should look for the
new paragraph break after 100 characters. I'd like the regular expression to
choose an earlier paragraph break rather than a later one, but at the
moment, if there is a message with a number of paragraphs, it chooses the
last possible one it can in order to make a match. I remember reading in the
Pickaxe about how regular expressions are 'greedy', and wonder if this is a
case of regex gluttony perhaps and what I can do to recommend to it a
lighter diet.

  # final act is to chop message in half
  if message =~ /\A(.{100,#{message.length}})<\/p>\s*<p>(.*)/m then
   first_half = $1
   second_half = "</p>\n<p>" + $2
  else
   first_half = message
  end

The logic I'd like the above regex to operate with is: "Starting 100
characters into the message, chop the message at the next paragraph break".

Thanks
Luke