Question

Here is my regex pattern: [Ss]ection\s\d+(?![a-zA-z])(?!</ref>)

For example, it should match: section 5 or section 50

For example, it should not match: section 5A or section 5</ref> or section 5A</ref> or section 50A

Problem is that in reality it matches them wrong: http://regexr.com?33ien

Not sure what’s wrong with the pattern though…

Answer 1

Maybe try [Ss]ection\s\d++(?![a-zA-z])(?!</ref>). ++ is possessive quantifier. This quantifier is similar to greedy quantifier except it blocks fragment of string that it matched from being used by later part of regex.

Example

System.out.println("ababab".matches("(ab)++ab")); 
// prints false since last "ab" is possessed by (ab)++