Negative Lookahead Problem

[Terry Reedy]

 n Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 12:11:54PM +0000, Roger Day wrote:

> import re
>
> path = ["/users/dibbl","users/rsrc"]
> print "expect 1st element to be selected"
> m = re.compile(".*(?!rsrc$)")
> for p in path:
>     kk = m.match( p )
>     if kk:
>         print p

> > expect 1st element to be selected
> > /users/dibbl
> > users/rsrc

> > In the first test case, the negative-lookahead "fails"

I suspect its because .* matches (gobbles up) the whole string,
which is then not followed by whatever.  I think the suggestion
to use .endswith() is a good one.

TJR