Re^3: RegEx question

[AnomalousMonk]

Sure, just squish it all together (untested)
    /^(?:(?!bank).)*nova[ ]scotia(?:(?!bank).)*$/
and remember that  . (dot) no longer "matches all." But why would you want to?

Update: Actually, you no longer need the character class (update: because without  /x a space is a literal space):
    /^(?:(?!bank).)*nova scotia(?:(?!bank).)*$/
and if you just gotta get rid of that last space:
    /^(?:(?!bank).)*nova\x20scotia(?:(?!bank).)*$/
(both still untested).

[vit]

Because I need it for both Perl and Java. Looks like this works, thank you very much !!!