vim syntax match using regex and non-greedy modifier

Question

I am trying to create a custom syntax that has a structure similar to the following

Title String:
{
   ...,
   ...,
   ...
}

Title String2:
{
   ...,
   {
      ...,
      ...,
      ...
   }
   ...,
   ...,
   ...
}

I have been able to write syn match and syn region statements that detect everything within the { ... } regions, however I have not been able to come up with one that will match the Title Strings.

Here is my region statement:

syn region dbgMessage start="{" end="}" contains=ALLBUT,dbgMessageHeader

I attempted to add something like this to detect the Title Strings, which I want to be everything/anything up to but not including the opening bracket.

syn match dbgMessageHeader "\v.\{-}\ze(\{)"

My reasoning:

• .\\{-} should consume every character and be non greedy
• \\ze(\\{) should look ahead for an opening bracket and stop when it finds one

A bonus challenge is that it would be great if this syntax could correctly detect everything if I get the code in a flattened state, ex:

Title String: { ..., ..., ... }
Title String2: { ..., { ..., ..., ... } ..., ..., ... }

Again, my current implementation can correctly match everything inside the brackets in both flat and formatted states, so it would be great if I could figure something out that would also match the title strings in both cases.

See something that I'm missing?

Answer 1

I'm not very familiar with Vim's regex syntax, but this regex will work for most Perl-based flavors (with the s modifier):

\s([^\s]+):.*?\{

To translate that into Vim, it should be (I think):

\s\([^\s]\+\):\_.\{-}{

Note that I am using \\_. instead of . to make it act like the s modifier.

Also note that " very magic mode " (whatever that is) will probably mess this up.

---

It's not easy (if possible) to get the "flat version", since Vim only supports DFA matching.