Can I do a substring using regex?

Question

I am newbie to regex here's my question:

Below is the content of the file:

cts-pdr/comment-primary/:not spamming
cts-pdr/comment-primary/:please remove since not spamming
cts-pdr/comment-primary/:not spamming
cts-pdr/comment-primary/:not spamming
cts-pdr/comment-primary/:Not spamming
cts-pdr/comment-primary/:not spamming
cts-pdr/comment-primary/:please unblock since not spaming

What I am trying to achieve here is to match the second part of the colon. I'd like to capture the whole string i.e.:

(please\s.*)? [N|n]ot .*

I am not able to get the right match. Can anyone help?

No need for regexes here. Split on the colon and take the second part. — Sergio Tulentsev
– Sergio Tulentsev, Commented Dec 27, 2017 at 14:24
Can you please edit your question to have a non-useless title that actually attempts to describe what you're asking? — underscore_d
– underscore_d, Commented Dec 27, 2017 at 14:27
Regex is overkill.This is a simple task using split, as @SergioTulentsev says. — Ken White
– Ken White, Commented Dec 27, 2017 at 14:29
@Totem see above for the regex that I've used. I am using regex in unix script. — Farid
– Farid, Commented Dec 27, 2017 at 14:30
@underscore_d I am trying to match whole string of the second part of the colon. KenWhite like sergio suggested could you please elaborate on how to use the split? — Farid
– Farid, Commented Dec 27, 2017 at 14:33

The fourth bird · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-27 14:27:17Z

1

What you could do is update your regex to:

(please|[N|n]ot).*

And mabye use a non capturing group (?: like:

(?:please|[N|n]ot).*

That would match please or Not or not followed by any character zero or more times .*

answered Dec 27, 2017 at 14:27

The fourth bird

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1 Comment

Farid Over a year ago

This worked (?:please|[N|n]ot).* Thanks for the help :)

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