Question

I can have a string that looks like this as an example:

sometext<a title="Wink"><img src="http:\\www.seemstatic.com\images\transparent.png" class="emoWink"></a>somemore text<a title="Wink"><img src="http:\\www.seemstatic.com\images\transparent.png" class="emoWink"></a>endof text...

I have the following Javascript that matches the above string, and replaces it with :):

subject = subject.replace(/<a title="Smile"><img.*<\/a>/, ':)');

The catch is it’s not greedy… it matches both occurrences rather then just one.

How would I change this code to match just the first occurrence?

Answer 1

you need to make it non greedy by adding a question mark ?

// Greedy quantifiers
String match = find("A.*c", "AbcAbc");  // AbcAbc
match = find("A.+", "AbcAbc");          // AbcAbc

// Nongreedy quantifiers
match = find("A.*?c", "AbcAbc");        // Abc
match = find("A.+?", "AbcAbc");         // Abc

So in your case, something like

subject = subject.replace(/<a title="Smile"><img.*?<\/a>/, ':)');