I know there are a lot of regex and negative lookbehind questions but I have one that I cannot find an answer to. I want to find instances of water but not if it has never in front of it with a variable number of characters between the two. There is an infinite number of variable characters between these two words and lookbehind does not allow for variable characters. I have code that will find never but it will find never at the very start of the script. Is there a way to limit a lookbehind to only 20 or 30 characters? What I have: (?i)^(?=.*?(?:water))(??!never).)*$ Just some of the examples I am working with: water (match) I have water (match) I never have water Where is the water. (match) I never have food or water I never have food but I always have water (match) I never have food or chips. I like to walk. I have water (match) Again, the problem is that I could have a paragraph that is 10 sentences long and if it has never any where in there it will not find water and that lookbehind and lookahead does not accept variable characters. I appreciate any help you could give. Continue reading...
