Regexp matches only as few characters as possible

Hey,

I'm trying to figure out how can I find expression which matches following strings:

strToBeChecked{1} = 'XYZ_500mmsV_xxx'; 
strToBeChecked{2}= 'XYZ_500msV_xxx';

regexpi(strToBeChecked{1},'(?<val>\d{2,5})[_- ]?(?<dim>m{1,2}sV)','names');

regexpi stores only msV as dim instead of mmsV. While

regexpi(strToBeChecked{2},'(?<val>\d{2,5})[_- ]?(?<dim>m{1,2}sV)','names');

acts just like it should (stores msV as dim).

Hope anyone knows workaround for this :)

Would help me a lot !

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

[_- ]

is a range match specification. It matches any one character that is between '_' and ' ' (space), inclusive. And it happens that you can specify the range backwards, so for example [d-a] is the same as [a-d] both matching any of 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd'.

The characters that are in the range of space to underscore are ' !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_ ' -- however you used regexpi so it is case insensitive, so it also matches lower-case alphabetics.

If you wanted to match any one of '_', '-' or space, then you use a syntax oddity: '-' is not recognized as a range indication if in any of the forms [LETTERS-] or [-LETTERS] or [^LETTERS-] or [^-LETTERS] so you could code [_ -] instead of [_- ]

[Mate D]

thanks :) switched [_- ] to [_ -] and it worked instantly.

I forgot that "-" has special meaning inside [ ].