[TxMt] a newbie asks for help with regular expressions

[Allan Odgaard]

On 17/8/2006, at 22:04, Lawrence Goodman wrote:

> [...] For example if I type:
> * Textmate *
> This would be identified as element.comment.first.
>
> So I wrote the following [...]
>
>     match = '[*]\s?([^\* ]|\.| [*] | )*[*]';

That is a somewhat puzzling pattern. It matches *, optional  
whitespace, a sequence of ‘not * or space’ or the ‘.’ character, or  
the ‘ * ’ sequence. And then finally a ‘*’.

The second branch is redundant and the third I think is unwanted.

> The problem is it can't identify the element when it comes in the
> middle or end of a line, i.e.
> I want to learn how to use * Textmate * tomorrow.

What it can’t identify is when the terminating ‘*’ has spaces on both  
sides, as it will then be taken by your middle repeat, and the  
terminating state is never met.

> Any suggestions or help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Well, not entirely sure what you want to match, but sounds like just:

    [*].*?[*]

That matches from asterisk to asterisk.