[regex] How to capture everything until match a string

Hello,

If I use ([^string]+) in a regex, it will capture everything until it matches any s, t, r, i, n or g, right?

how to capture everything until it matches the whole string as a... string ?
Logically I would have done this: ([^(?:string)]+) but it doesn't seem to work..


thanks for your help

 

Lookahead assertions.

<?
$str1 = 'stay out of the weed';
$str2 = 'stay out of the weeds';
$pattern = '#^(.+(?=weeds?))#si';
$matches = array();

preg_match($pattern, $str1, $matches[0]);
preg_match($pattern, $str2, $matches[1]);

echo sprintf('<pre>%s</pre>', print_r($matches, true));
?>

Code (markup):

 

Thanks a lot, I didn't know about assertions!

 

They're kinda confusing at first.
One thing that gets me sometimes is remembering to use the occurance specification before the assertion.

.+(?=ahead)

// instead of 

.(?=ahead)+

Code (markup):

I think the error it gives me is something along the lines of "Nothing to repeat at index X".