Omit a pattern?

Question

is there a way to tell preg_match_all to find all sequences that matches a certain pattern but omits another pattern?

eg.

<a>computers</a>
<a>books</a>
<a>pens</a>

i want to match books and pens but not computers.

so using:

preg_match_all('/<a>.*?<\/a>', $string, $array);

wont do.

would appreciate some help with this. thanks!

Answer 1

You can use lookahead assertions:

/<a>(?!computer).*?<\/a>/