Drat, drat drat! And I was on a roll :) Nice work.

Rather than simply testing for a question mark followed by a character that is not a quote (\?[^"]), I should have tested for a question mark with a negative look-ahead (\?(?!")) for a quote. This appears to work: 

$myvar =~ /"((?:[^?"]|\?(?!"))*)\?"/';

[download]
Unfortunately, Benchmark shows that it's not quite as fast as merlyn's version.

For those unfamiliar with lookaheads, they allow you to test for text without "bumping along" the regex. In other words, \?[^"] will check for a question mark followed by a non-quote character, but further matching of the regex continues after the non-quote character. \?(?!") allows you to check for a question mark not followed by a quote, but continues matching after the question mark.

Note: There is a subtle difference between the negated character class and the negative lookahead. The negated character class generally requires a character after the question mark (in the above example), while the negative lookahead just makes sure that a quote doesn't follow the question mark and doesn't require a character.

Cheers,
Ovid

In reply to (Ovid) RE(2): Death to Dot Star! by Ovid
in thread Death to Dot Star! by Ovid

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