Text Processingflags: g

Lazy / Non-Greedy Quantifier

Demonstrate lazy quantifiers `+?` by matching the SHORTEST HTML-like tag rather than the longest greedy span.

Available in

JavaScript / ECMAScript code

jsJavaScript

const re = new RegExp("<.+?>", "g");
const input = "<b>bold</b> and <i>italic</i>";
const matches = [...input.matchAll(re)];
console.log(matches.map(m => m[0]));

Uses `String.prototype.matchAll` for global iteration (Node 12+ / all modern browsers).

Python (re) code

pyPython

import re

pattern = re.compile(r"<.+?>")
input_text = "<b>bold</b> and <i>italic</i>"
for m in pattern.finditer(input_text):
    print(m.group(0))

Stdlib `re` module — no third-party dependency. Works on Python 3.6+.

Go (RE2) code

goGo

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"regexp"
)

func main() {
	re := regexp.MustCompile(`<.+?>`)
	input := `<b>bold</b> and <i>italic</i>`
	for _, match := range re.FindAllString(input, -1) {
		fmt.Println(match)
	}
}

Uses `regexp.MustCompile` (panics on bad patterns at startup) and `FindAllString` for all matches.

Pattern

regexengine-agnostic

<.+?>   (flags: g)

Raw source: <.+?>

How it works

<.+?> matches an opening `<`, then ONE OR MORE characters (`.+`), then the next `>`. The `?` after `+` makes the quantifier lazy — it stops at the first `>` it sees, instead of the greedy default that would consume everything up to the LAST `>` in the string.