More RegEx help, (looking back?)

[NoteMe]

yesterday DeadEyes thought be about ?= that is a look ahead assertion. But is there something for looking back too? I need to find a function definition. And it always has "def" infront of it. and a ( after it. So to find a function I can do:
\b[\w\d_]*(?=\()


but I need to add to that to match it ONLY if "def" is in front of it.

I.e:
def _ma5in_(


Anyone have any ideas.


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[DeadEyes]

yes there is
(?=) lookahead
(?<=) lookbehind
these are for positive matches there are also negative ones;some good info can be found here http://www.regular-expressions.info/

[NoteMe]

wohhooo...will test it and see if I can make it work right away.

[NoteMe]

Great page. Took me a while to understand that the look behind had to be in front of the expression I had to match.....but the syntax I have come up with now is like this..

(?<=def\s)[\w\d_]*



and it seems like it works. This is so fun..


Thanks a million.
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[NoteMe]

Well it worked in my RegEx coatch testing tool. But JS is not eating it......

[NoteMe]

Hehe...I am pretty stupid though....JS doesn't support lookbehind at all....thats why it isn't working...


So it is possible to use the ^ for a whole word in staed of just ONE letter? Because if I do this:

[^def] then it will just test for d or e or f. Not the word def. I have too rule out all matches that has the def word in front.


so it will trigger on this one:

if sef():

but not this one at all:

def _ma5in_():