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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-28T06:18:37+00:00

Example input string: (F1 (F2 X (Y) Z) (F3 A B) What i want

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Example input string:

(F1 (F2 X (Y) Z) (F3 A B)

What i want to match: \w+ that is not preceded by a ( unless also followed by )
In this case: X, Y, Z, A, and B

A temporary work-around for now (which I know will give me issues later) is /\(\w+\)| \w+/, but as it also matches whitespaces, it will cause problems further down the road, especially when it gets to the point of substituting the matches.

I have done some experimenting in the area of negative lookbehind in the form of:

/(?!=\()\w+/

…but i can’t seem to find a way of combining it with “not preceeded by (“

Just to be clear:

  • The matches in this case are all single letter, but actual data may be multiple characters and may not even be alphanumeric.
  • No whitespaces or parentheses can be a part of the returned match.
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Try this:

    (?<=[ (])\w(?=[ )])

    See it here in action: http://regexr.com?2vnri

    Actually, this might be what you are looking for:

    (?<= )\w+(?=[ )])|(?<=\()\w+(?=\))

    See it here in action: http://regexr.com?2vnro

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