Regex match everything except words between quotes

Question

I want to write a regex what matches everything except words between quotes. Ex.:

 Lorem ipsum "dolor" sit amet, consectetur "adipiscing" elit.
 Nunc ultrices varius odio, "ut accumsan nisi" aliquet vitae.
 "Ut faucibus augue tortor, at aliquam purus dignissim eget."

So I want a regex what matches the following strings:

Lorem ipsum
sit amet, consectetur
elit. Nunc ultrices varius odio,
aliquet vitae.

I only have the following expression that matches substrings inside quotes:

([\"'])(?:\\\1|.)*?\1

I have this `([\"'])(?:\\\1|.)*?\1` , but I want the opposite. Everything what does not match for this. — Gotrank, Aug 22 '17 at 07:53
Are you using PHP/PCRE? Try https://regex101.com/r/D1WE0g/1. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Aug 22 '17 at 08:08
If you don't expect escaped quotes or single quotes, also try [`\G(?:"[^"]*"\K)?[^"]+`](https://regex101.com/r/mbgo5w/1) — bobble bubble, Aug 22 '17 at 11:04

Duc Filan · Answer 1 · 2017-08-22T08:16:14.867

2

This regex works:

([^"]+?)(".*?"|$)

https://regex101.com/r/um9TEx/3

1st Capturing Group ([^"]+?)
Match a single character not present in the list below [^"]+?
+? Quantifier — Matches between one and unlimited times, as few times as possible, expanding as needed (lazy)
" matches the character " literally (case sensitive)
" matches the character " literally (case sensitive)
.*? matches any character (except for line terminators)
*? Quantifier — Matches between zero and unlimited times, as few times as possible, expanding as needed (lazy)
" matches the character " literally (case sensitive)

edited Aug 22 '17 at 08:16

answered Aug 22 '17 at 07:51

Duc Filan

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But It doest match strings without qoutes. – Gotrank Aug 22 '17 at 08:00
What do you mean? – Duc Filan Aug 22 '17 at 08:00

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 22 '17 at 08:48

If you are using PCRE, you may use

([\"'])(?:\\.|(?!\1)[^\\])*?\1(*SKIP)(*F)|(?:[^\\"']|\\.)+

See its demo.

Details

([\"'])(?:\\.|(?!\1)[^\\])*?\1 - a "..." or '...' substring with escaped quote support:
- ([\"']) - Group 1 (referred to with \1): a " or '
- (?:\\.|(?!\1)[^\\])*? - 0+ occurrences (as few as possible due to *? being lazy) of:
  - \\. - an escape sequence
  - | - or
  - (?!\1)[^\\] - any char other than \ and the quote char in Group 1
- \1 - Same value as in Group 1 (" or ')
(*SKIP)(*F) - PCRE verbs that omit the current match and make the engine proceed to the next match from the current match end position
| - or
(?:[^\\"']|\\.)+ - 1 or more occurrences of:
- [^\\"'] - a char other than \, ' or "
- \\. - an escape sequence.

So anyone doesn't take forever to figure this part out everything before the | just discards everything inside quotes. I didn't even know you could discard matches with regex. — Dean Or, Jul 29 '19 at 22:44

Regex match everything except words between quotes

2 Answers2

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