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- Subject: Re: Pattern question
- From: Peter Cawley <lua@...>
- Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:14:57 +0100
On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 11:02 AM, Bernd Eggink <monoped@sudrala.de> wrote:
> Hi experts,
>
> can anybody explain the following:
>
> s = "/one/two/three"
> print(s:match("/.-$")) --> /one/two/three
>
> Shouldn't the result be "/three"? To me it seems clear that "three" is the
> shortest character sequence between '/' and the end of the string.
String patterns have one overarching goal: find the first match.
The ".-" element has a local goal of finding the shortest match, but
this goal is less important than the first-match goal.