Question

i’m trying to learn a bit about regex, can anyone explain to me what is going on here? And give example on a regex that would provide the expected output? Thanks!

input data = 'Sometext|even more text'

regex = '(.*)?\|?.*'

replacement = '$1'

expected output = 'Sometext'

actual output = 'Sometext|even more text'

PHP

preg_filter("(.*)?\|?.*", "$1", 'Sometext|even more text'); // returns  Sometext|even more text

Answer 1

(.*) is greedy, so matches everything. $1 is everything then.

You are probably looking for:

/^([^|]*).*$/