From: Jan Svitok <jan.svitok@...>
Date: 2006-11-10T02:20:54+09:00
Subject: Re: too greedy of a regexp

On 11/9/06, Dave Rose <bitdoger2@yahoo.com> wrote:
> i have a regexp: /(^BillHead(.*))(^Bill_End(.*))/m that's too greedy for
> processing
> a billing extract file containing:
> BillHead...<<<much information here>>\n
> <<one or more detail lines here\n>>
> Bill_End...<<<much information here>>\n
> BillHead...<<<much information here>>\n
> <<one or more detail lines here\n>>
> Bill_End...<<<much information here>>\n
> ...etc.... to EOF....
>
> ..i get the whole file matched....i just want each invoice...
> it will eventually be in a oneliner like
> a=File.read("billfile").scan(regexp)
>
> so what is the non-greedy way for the above regexp to properly match
> each invoice...

try:

/(^BillHead(.*?))(^Bill_End(.*?))\n/m

or

/(^BillHead(.*?))(^Bill_End([^\n].*))\n/m

notice the .*? instead of .*

.*? has some pecularities, that were discussed here some time ago, so
perhaps you'd want to find them in the archives. (search for 'greedy'
or 'regex' - I don't remeber now)