Question

I am trying this regex

(?<!(John|Joe)) (Taylor)

On this text
John James Taylor

but I am getting “invalid pattern in lookbehind” here http://www.rubular.com/r/TjD2d4oG5z

I am trying to match “Taylor” that does not have John or Joe before it.

Any tips please?

Answer 1

Try the following:

(?<!(?:John|Joe)) (Taylor)

(?:) is a non-capturing group, which makes sense in a lookaround, since you are merely doing an assertion, not actually matching anything. Or just remove the capturing group all together, that is, (?<!John|Joe).