Invert match with regexp [duplicate]

Answer 1

Build an expression that matches, and use !match()... (logical negation) That's probably how grep does anyway...

Answer 2

It's indeed almost a duplicate. I guess the regex you're looking for is

(?!foo).*

Answer 3

Okay, I have refined my regular expression based on the solution you came up with (which erroneously matches strings that start with 'test').

^((?!foo).)*$

This regular expression will match only strings that do not contain foo. The first lookahead will deny strings beginning with 'foo', and the second will make sure that foo isn't found elsewhere in the string.

Answer 4

Based on Daniel's answer, I think I've got something that works:

^(.(?!test))*$

The key is that you need to make the negative assertion on every character in the string

Answer 5

You can also do this (in python) by using re.split, and splitting based on your regular expression, thus returning all the parts that don't match the regex, splitting based on what doesn't match a regularexpression