Question

I have a regular expression string (see below). What I would like is for it to select all the appropriate patterns but not include patterns starting with MZ

PATTERN – ^[A-Z]{2}\d{7}[A-Z]?[A-Z]?$

I have read some posts regarding look ahead assertions but I’m affraid they are too complicated for me to understand.

Can anyone help?

Answer 1

Go with pattern

^(?!MZ)[A-Z]{2}\d{7}[A-Z]?[A-Z]?$

where (?!...) is a negative lookahead, which makes sure that MZ is not at the beginning of the string.