How to get first match of string by Regular Expression?

Question

I have the following text string:

$ABCD(file="somefile.txt")$' />Some more text followed by a dollar like this one)$. Some more random text

I am trying to match the $ABCD(file="somefile.txt")$ part of the string using a regular expression.

I am using this (?=[$]ABCD[(]file=).*(?<=[)][$]) regular expression pattern to make the intended match. It's not working as expected because I am getting a match all the way to the second )$ in the string.

For example, the match will be as follows:

$ABCD(file="somefile.txt")$' />Some more text followed by a dollar like this one)$

How should I modify the pattern to match to the end of the first occurrence of the )$?

Here is a good online regular expression engine tester: http://derekslager.com/blog/posts/2007/09/a-better-dotnet-regular-expression-tester.ashx

Answer 1

try appending a ? to the greedy *

(?=[$]ABCD[(]file=).*?(?<=[)][$])

Lazy quantification

The standard quantifiers in regular expressions are greedy, meaning they match as much as they can. Modern regular expression tools allow a quantifier to be specified as lazy (also known as > non-greedy, reluctant, minimal, or ungreedy) by putting a question mark after the quantifier