Yeah i guess i really over-simplified it with the example

My workaround was to look for only occurrences where the regex was in parentheses, which was fine.

However i couldn't guarantee that they would only ever occur in parentheses, whereas i could guarantee that i never wanted a match with a preceding backslash, so that seemed like the elegant approach which to me is better practice.

Anyway, long story short, you answered my question! I can't believe i missed having the first part of the regex in the negative look behind. Seems so simple now!

Thanks for your help!