Though it works, I still don't get it :-(

The . matches anything (except newline), and (?!$pat) means "the next thing can't be $pat", so taken all together it really just means "match any number of characters, where none of these characters may be the first character of $pat".

In reply to Re^3: Match something that does not match by haukex
in thread Match something that does not match by jo37

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