From: Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@...>
Date: 2007-04-09T23:12:50+09:00
Subject: Re: regexp -how to match this?

On 4/9/07, Nanyang Zhan <sxain@hotmail.com> wrote:
> what kind of pattern will match the part of sentence before a <span>
> tag?
>
> for instance:
> for this sentence:
> This forum is connected to a mailing list that is read by <span
> class="wow">thousands</span> of people.
>
> it'll match:
> This forum is connected to a mailing list that is read by

/^.*?(?=<span)/

This is a little loose since it treats anything starting with "<span"
as a span tag.

Breaking it down:

^ - start of string

.*? - 0 or more characters, non-greedy, otherwise this would match
everything up to the LAST "<span" in the string, in stead of the first
which is what I suspect you really want.

(?=<span) - This is a zero-length lookahead, this means that "<span"
must occur just after what has been matched, but it will not be part
of the match itself.

HTH

-- 
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/