Regular Expression Interval Quantifier

Asked Mar 12 '17 at 16:08

Active Mar 12 '17 at 16:26

Viewed 103 times

Here is my Regular Expression:

(?i)(test){1,3}

Here are the strings I am using to test:

test test test test

I am using rubular.com to test.

My interpretation of my Regular Expression is

case insensitive, search for the word test without quotations a maximum of 3 times, but a minimum of 1.

On the line that outputs the results, my is the word "test" highlighted 4 times? Why doesn't it only highlight 3 times? I thought it would search 1 time minimum and 3 times maximum?

edited Mar 12 '17 at 16:26

Wiktor Stribiżew

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asked Mar 12 '17 at 16:08

LunchBox

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You simply have 4 matches of you regular expression. Match test 3 times (i.e. test{3,3} ) would match "testtesttest" but not "test test test" – Harald Gliebe Mar 12 '17 at 16:11
Why doesn't it only highlight 3 times? I thought it would search 1 time minimum and 3 times maximum? – LunchBox Mar 12 '17 at 16:12
Try the test string "testtest testtesttesttest testtesttest" – Harald Gliebe Mar 12 '17 at 16:14
Do you mean you want to limit the number of matches inside the regex pattern? It is not how regex is supposed to work. You may use programming means for it. Are you using Ruby? What is the real life scenario? – Wiktor Stribiżew Mar 12 '17 at 16:22
You have 4 matched test{1} [Learning Regular Expressions](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4736/learning-regular-expressions) @LunchBox – MohaMad Mar 12 '17 at 16:29
What is the programming language? You cannot solve your problem with a pure regex. – Wiktor Stribiżew Mar 12 '17 at 19:48
Is it Ruby?.... – Wiktor Stribiżew Mar 15 '17 at 15:48
I was just playing around with rubular.com. I was trying to teach myself some regex because I'm a junior etl developer. – LunchBox Mar 17 '17 at 01:15

Regular Expression Interval Quantifier

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