Regex exclude last matched character

Question

I have the following input text:

Teterboro US [TEB] - 20KM

I would like to get the following output :

Teterboro US

I am using the following expression :

.*\[

But it I am getting the following result

Teterboro US [

I would like to get rid of the last space and bracket " ["

I am using JavaScript.

Answer 1

You can use /.*?(?=\\s*\\[)/ with match ; ie change \\[ to look ahead (?=\\s*\\[) which asserts the following pattern but won't consume it:

 var s = "Teterboro US [TEB] - 20KM"; console.log( s.match(/.*?(?=\\s*\\[)/) ) 

Answer 2

You can try this pattern:

.*(?= \[)

It is positive lookahead assertion and it works just like you expect.

Answer 3

Another option (worth mentioning in case you're not familiar with groups) is to catch only the relevant part:

 var s = "Teterboro US [TEB] - 20KM"; console.log( s.match(/(.*)\\[/)[1] ) 

The regex is:

(.*)\[

matches anything followed by "[", but it "remembers" the part surrounded by parenthesis. Later you can access the match depending on the tool/language you're using. In JavaScript you simply access index 1.

Answer 4

You could use: \\w+\\s+\\w+? Depending upon your input