Regex: How to avoid capturing a group if it ends with a specific character

Question

I need to avoid capturing a match if it ends with a colon.

Example below:

item: something  
item: another  
item: things:  
item: yetanother

My desired result is to return nothing from the 3rd line.

I feel like I'm close with this regex using negative lookahead:

item: (\w+)(?!:)

But it's just cutting off the last letter, not avoiding the whole word.

Or change the lookahead to an anchor `item: (\w+)$` https://regex101.com/r/t4kdEA/1 — The fourth bird, Aug 03 '22 at 18:37
try: `item: (\w+)(?![\w:])` ( https://regex101.com/r/2zMHd7/1 ), a negative lookahead for a word OR a colon. — Luuk, Aug 03 '22 at 18:49

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 03 '22 at 18:37

1

No need for lookarounds, just specify that the line should not end with a colon:

^.*[^:]$

answered Aug 03 '22 at 18:37

MonkeyZeus

1 Answers1