I wouldn’t have expected that

"<test>.*</test>".toRegex()
    .find("aaaa<test>5</test>aaaa<test>4</test>aaaa")
    ?.let { println("match: ${it.value}") }

doesn’t return the minimal first match <test>5</test>, but the longer one <test>5</test>aaaa<test>4</test> given that the documentation says: “Returns the first match of a regular expression” here: https://kotlinlang.org/api/latest/jvm/stdlib/kotlin.text/-regex/find.html And unfortunately findAll equally just returns a single match instead of two. Is there a way for me to fix this? Playground link: https://pl.kotl.in/HA-C02_Gy

that’s more of a question about regexes than Kotlin I think, you want to use

.*?

yeah regex is greedy by default (it wants to match longest possible sequence first).

.*?

should work

yes!!!

.*?

does work 😃👍

“greedy” vs “lazy” quantifiers is the keyword

Stephan you may want to read about that here: https://www.regular-expressions.info/repeat.html, the paragraph “Watch Out for The Greediness!” tells exactly your story.

*

and

?

are greedy quantifiers.