Regex to match strings in JLex

Question

I'm trying to fix this regex, it's meant to match any string of characters except unescaped quotation marks and unescaped newline characters:

([^"]|\\"|[^\n]|\\n)*

Would anyone mind helping out?

For example I would want to match:

The cow jumped over the \\"moon

but not:

The cow jumped over the "moon

Same for newlines

Answer 1

You may use this regex:

^[^"\n\\]*(\\.[^"\n\\]*)*$

RegEx Demo

RegEx Details:

• ^: Start
• [^"\n\\]*: Match 0 or more of any char except newline. backslash and "
• (: Start 2nd group
  • \\: Match literal backslash
  • .: Match any character following a \
  • [^"\n\\]*: Match 0 or more of any char except newline. backslash and "
• )*: End 2nd group. Match 0 or more of this group
• $: End