Is there a way to achieve the equivalent of a negative lookbehind in javascript regular expressions? I need to match a string that does not start with a specific set of cha
Mijoja's strategy works for your specific case but not in general:
js>newString = "Fall ball bill balll llama".replace(/(ba)?ll/g,
function($0,$1){ return $1?$0:"[match]";});
Fa[match] ball bi[match] balll [match]ama
Here's an example where the goal is to match a double-l but not if it is preceded by "ba". Note the word "balll" -- true lookbehind should have suppressed the first 2 l's but matched the 2nd pair. But by matching the first 2 l's and then ignoring that match as a false positive, the regexp engine proceeds from the end of that match, and ignores any characters within the false positive.