I need to extract from a string a set of characters which are included between two delimiters, without returning the delimiters themselves.
A simple example should be helpful:
Target: extract the substring between square brackets, without returning the brackets themselves.
Base string: This is a test string [more or less]
If I use the following reg. ex.
\[.*?\]
The match is [more or less]
. I need to get only more or less
(without the brackets).
Is it possible to do it?
Easy done:
(?<=\[)(.*?)(?=\])
Technically that's using lookaheads and lookbehinds. See Lookahead and Lookbehind Zero-Width Assertions. The pattern consists of:
Alternatively you can just capture what's between the square brackets:
\[(.*?)\]
and return the first captured group instead of the entire match.