regex, extract string NOT between two brackets
Solution 1:
On refiddle.com set to JavaScript, try using this pattern
/\|(?![^{]*})/g
with this text
word1 | {word2 | word3 } | word 4 | word 4 | {word2 | word3 }
This should match all of the Pipe symbols that are not inside {}.
Solution 2:
Depends on the language/implementation you're using, but...
\|(?![^{]*})
This matches a pipe that is not followed by a }
except in the case that a {
comes first.
The (?! ... )
is known as a negative lookahead assertion. This is easier to understand if we start with a positive lookahead assertion:
\|(?=[^{]*})
The above only matches a pipe that is followed by a }
without encountering a {
first. When you negate that by replacing the =
with a !
, the match is now only successful if there's no way for the positive case to be true (also known as the complement).