Home/ Questions/Q 8103485
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-05T23:33:42+00:00

//string NSString *haystack = @.test {test:test} .test2{dasf:asdF}; //pattern NSString *needle = @[^{}]*{[^{}]*}; What I

  • 0
//string
NSString *haystack = @".test {test:test} .test2{dasf:asdF}";
//pattern
 NSString *needle = @"[^{}]*{[^{}]*}";

What I want from this is .test {test:test} and .test2{dasf:asdF} in an array (rest of the code handles this) but for some reason this regexp is not working correctly because no results are found.

If 

NSString *needle = @"[^{}]*";

I get the following

(
".test ",
"",
"test:test",
"",
" .test2",
"",
"dasf:asdF",
"",
""
)

which is expected. After a lot of fiddling it seems to be a problem with { and } in the regex but I can’t think why.

Incidently, if anyone can explain why I get these empty elements in the array above that would be useful to know as well.

Thanks!

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Would you try using:

     NSString *needle = @"[^{}]*\{[^{}]*\}";

    indeed, { and } have special meaning in regexs (but they are sort of “automatically” escaped when used within [])

    • 0