Regular Expression for exclude something that has specific word inside bracked (MySQL)

Question

This Regular expression if for MySQL query:

I want to exclude this row because it has 'something' in side the bracket "bla bla bla bla bla bla (bla bla bla something)"

However I want to include this row, because it does not have 'something' inside the bracket "bla bla bla (bla bla bla)"

I tried this query but it didnt work.

SELECT * FROM table WHERE field NOT REGEXP '((%something%))';

I think this is wrong, I just did trial and error, I like to use regular expression, but never understand it completely. is there any good tutorial/books/links for learning the detail of regular expression?

Thank You

Answer 1

Try:

SELECT * FROM table WHERE field NOT REGEXP '\\([^\\)]*something.*\\)'

The regexp is:

\([^\)]*something.*\)

(but MySQL treats \ as a special character so we have to escape it as \).

That means:

\(         - an open-parentheses character ("(" has a special meaning
             in regular expressions, so we have to escape it with "\")
[^\)]      - any character except a ")"...
*          - ... repeated any number of times
something  - the string to match
.          - any character
*          - ... repeated any number of times
\)         - a ")" character