Python regex to match word before <

Question

So I want to match something like this -

foo <TEST>something something </TEST> blah

I want a regex that gets me the foo, but does not get me the something. I was thinking of using a regex that was something like this

(\w\s)<

with a negative lookahead, but I'm not sure how to use that in this case.

OTHER CASES-

something something foo <TEST> something something </TEST> blah 

Answer 1

You could try something like this:

\w+(?=\s*<[^/])

regex101 demo

The positive lookahead (?=\s*<[^/]) ensures that there are optional spaces followed by a < which is not followed by a / ahead.

\w+     matches one or more \w
(?=     beginning of positive lookahead
  \s*   optional spaces
  <     a < character
  [^/]  not a / character
)       end of positive lookahead

Answer 2

Negetive look-ahead will do just fine.

(\S+)\s*<(?!/)