匹配嵌套方括号标记的正则表达式是什么？

Question

I created a regular expression pattern that matches square bracket, Wiki-type tags like the following:

[h1]Some content[/h1]
[b]some more content[/b]
[i]some more still[/i]

Here is a scenario:

This [b]sentence[/b] is just an [b][i]example[/i][/b].

Here is the pattern:

\[\w{1,2}\](.*?)\[\/\w{1,2}]

The thing is, sometimes the tags are nested. For example:

[b][i]nested tags content[/i][/b]

Nesting doesn't get more complicated than this. As would be expected, the pattern returns:

[b][i]nested tags content[/i]

What modification should I make in the pattern or what other pattern should I use for the match to capture the entire nested set?

Answer 1

Regular expression don't do very well with the conditions you set. Especially when you have both nested expressions and multiple occurrences per string make it hard for a regular expression to parse.

It might be quite heavy to go that way, but a parser like ANTLR is better suited for this. And if you are capable, you can write you own simple string parser.

Answer 2

just remove the question mark and get first group would be what you expected. *? Quantifier — Matches as few times as possible, expanding as needed。 But what you need is as many times as possible as the default acting. \\[\\w{1,2}\\](.*)\\[\\/\\w{1,2}]