From: Hassan Schroeder <hassan.schroeder@...>
Date: 2008-08-13T23:23:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Regular expression: anything except

On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 7:10 AM, Gunther Gunt
<gunther.thevenin@airbus.com> wrote:

> I am trying to create a regular expression with the following rule:
>
> my text is:
> <TEXT id=''>blabla</TEXT>
> I want to replace <TEXT*> with something
>
> "<TEXT id=''>".gsub(/the magic regular expression/,"replacement")
> ==> replacementblabla</TEXT>

This example isn't consistent with the following ones -- do you
want the ending </TEXT> inserted even if it's not in the original
string?

> but i want also that
> "<TEXT>blabla</TEXT>".gsub(/the magic regular expression/,"replacement")
> returns the same result
> ==> replacementblabla</TEXT>
>
> and
> <TEXT *anything*>blabla</TEXT>".gsub(/the magic regular
> expression/,"replacement")
> returns the same result
> ==> replacementblabla</TEXT>

Assuming the second two are actually what you want, try

"<TEXT id='foo'>blabla</TEXT>".gsub(/<TEXT[^>]*>/, 'replacement')

HTH,
-- 
Hassan Schroeder ------------------------ hassan.schroeder@gmail.com