Re^2: Match something that does not match

[jo37]

Your regex is indeed the one I was after. Though it works, I still don't get it :-(
And I agree with you: this is too simple for Regexp::Common

Thanks for your comment. Still learning...

-jo

[haukex]

Though it works, I still don't get it :-(

The . matches anything (except newline), and (?!$pat) means "the next thing can't be $pat", so taken all together it really just means "match any number of characters, where none of these characters may be the first character of $pat".

[jo37]

I was challenged by the mental step of putting something after a look-ahead assertion. Failing to understand this lead to the missing last character in the second branch of my original regex.
Anyway, the fog lifts. Thanks a lot!

-jo