What seemed to be a simple task ended up to not work as expected...
I'm trying to match \$\w+\b, unless it's preceded by an uneven number of backslashes.
Examples (only $result should be in the match):
This $result should be matched
This \$result should not be matched
This \\$result should be matched
This \\\$result should not be matched
etc...
The following pattern works:
(?<!\\)(\\\\)*\$\w+\b
However, even repeats of backslashes are included in the match, which is unwanted, so I'm trying to achieve this purely with a variable-length lookbehind, but nothing I tried so far seems to work.
Any regex virtuoso here can lend a hand?
You may use the following pattern:
(?<!(?:^|[^\\])\\(?:\\\\)*)\$\w+\b
Demo.
Breakdown of the Lookbehind; i.e., not preceded by:
(?:^|[^\\]) - Beginning of string/line or any character other than backslash.\\ - Then, one backslash character.(?:\\\\)* Then, any even number of backslash characters (including zero).