On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 10:32:26AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Karsten Hilbert <Karsten.Hilbert@gmx.net> writes:
> > What I don't understand is: Why does the following return a
> > substring ?
>
> > select substring ('junk $<allergy::test::99>$ junk' from '\$<[^<]+?::[^:]+?>\$');
>
> There's a perfectly valid match in which [^<]+? matches allergy::test
> and [^:]+? matches 99.
Tom, thanks for helping !
I would have thought "<[^<]+?:" should mean:
match a "<"
followed by 1-n characters as long as they are not "<"
until the VERY NEXT ":"
The "?" should make the "+" after "[^<]" non-greedy and thus
stop at the first occurrence of ":", right ? Or am I
misunderstanding that part ?
At any rate,
select substring ('junk $<allergy::test::99>$ junk' from '\$<[^<:]+?::[^:]+?>\$');
(which follows from your hint) appears to do what I need.
Thanks,
Karsten
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