Re^2: Find all strings containing "a" characters, that are not followed by "b" characters.

[johngg]

in reply to Re: Find all strings containing "a" characters, that are not followed by "b" characters.
in thread Find all strings containing "a" characters, that are not followed by "b" characters.

A look-ahead is fine, you just have to insert .* (zero or more of anything) before the "b" I think.

$ perl -E '
> say qq{$_ - @{ [ m{a(?!.*b)} ? q{Match} : q{No match} ] }} for (
>    q{Have you any fish},
>    q{What a nice broom},
>    q{Fishing for trout},
>    );'
Have you any fish - Match
What a nice broom - No match
Fishing for trout - No match
$

I hope this is of interest.