Non greedy pattern match in sed

[Kim Holburn]

At 4:25 PM +1000 2002/08/13, Michael Still wrote:
>Hey,
>
>I would like non greedy regexp matching in sed.
>
>i.e.
>
>echo "/* This is a */ test /* line */" | sed 's/\/\*.*\*\//g'
>                                                            ^^
>                                                    Non greedy toggle
>                                                    here?
>
>Should result in:
>
>" test "
>
>Any hints?

If you use perl you can do this. From the perl manual (man perlre)

       By default, a quantified subpattern is "greedy", that is,
       it will match as many times as possible (given a particu-
       lar starting location) while still allowing the rest of
       the pattern to match.  If you want it to match the minimum
       number of times possible, follow the quantifier with a
       "?".  Note that the meanings don't change, just the
       "greediness":

           *?     Match 0 or more times
           +?     Match 1 or more times
           ??     Match 0 or 1 time
           {n}?   Match exactly n times
           {n,}?  Match at least n times
           {n,m}? Match at least n but not more than m times

 .... | perl -p -e 's/\/\*.*?\*\//g'

> echo "/* This is a */ test /* line */" |perl -p -e 's/\/\*.*?\*\///g'
 test


>
>Thanks,
>Mikal
>
>--
>
>Michael Still (mikal at stillhq.com)     UMT+10hrs


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