Question

There is one problem bother me for a long time.

In Python, the regex always match the longest string in the content.

For example, the content is below:

<test> A <br> B <br>

If I use the regex re.compile('/<test/>(\w\s)+/<br/>'), python match longest string which means <test> A <br> B <br>

How can I match the shortest string which is <test> A <br> ?

Thanks for your reading and reply.

Answer 1

Your regex looks really strange. I think you mean:

re.compile('/<test>[\w\s]+<br>/')

And in that case you can make it ‘non-greedy’ using a question mark:

re.compile('/<test>[\w\s]+?<br>/')