REGEX - find a string that has the same match?

Question

I am trying to match a string "menu-item" but has a digit after it.

<li id="menu-item-578" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-578">

i can use this regex

menu-item-[0-9]*

however it matches all the menu-item string, i want to only match the "menu-item-578" but not id="menu-item-578"

how can i do it?

thank you

@WiktorStribiżew The marked question is not a duplicate to this, for sure. — revo, Apr 08 '18 at 10:11

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 08 '18 at 09:04

You should avoid using menu-item-[0-9]* not because it matches the same expected substring superfluously but for the reason that it goes beyond that too like matching menu-item- in menu-item-one.

Besides replacing quantifier with +, you have to look if preceding character is not a non-whitespace character:

(?<!\S)menu-item-[0-9]+(?=["' ])

or if your regex flavor doesn't support lookarounds you may want to do this which may not be precise either:

[ ]menu-item-[0-9]+

You may also consider following characters using a more strict pattern:

[ ]menu-item-[0-9]+["' ]

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 08 '18 at 08:56

0

Use a space before, like this:

\ menu-item-[0-9]*

The first ocurrence has an " right before, while the second one has a space.

EDIT: use an online regex editor (like Regex tester to try this things.

answered Apr 08 '18 at 08:56

jjimenezg93

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it highlight all the menu-item aside from the one in id lol can it be more strict to just highlight the one with digit? – cryptohustla Apr 08 '18 at 09:44

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 08 '18 at 10:29

0

Try it works too:

(\s)(menu-item-)\d+

https://regex101.com/

\s Any whitespace character

edited Apr 08 '18 at 10:29

revo

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answered Apr 08 '18 at 09:15

pedram shabani

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works as well but i have a lot of menu-item with digits not just 578 – cryptohustla Apr 08 '18 at 09:45
updated the answer – pedram shabani Apr 08 '18 at 10:13
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perfect! :D thank you – cryptohustla Apr 08 '18 at 10:16
What does `\.?` do there? – revo Apr 08 '18 at 10:20
it works well with \.? lol – cryptohustla Apr 08 '18 at 11:14

REGEX - find a string that has the same match?

3 Answers3