Difficulty with string expressions, Regex.Match

[ddx]

Background: I'm using Regex.Match and string expressions for string matching.

 

For instance, if:

 

String sMatchString = @"SOFT>?(WARE)";

 

and sString = "SOFTWARE",

 

then I get oMatch.Length > 0 from:

 

Match oMatch = Regex.Match(sString, sMatchString);

 

And oMatch.Length < 0 if sString is anything else such as "SOFTWXRE"

 

 

My problem: I want to invert the evaluation of sMatchString . I want oMatch.Length to be > 0 if sString contains at its end anything *except* "WARE". I thought i could simply insert the ! operator like so:

 

String sMatchString = @"SOFT>?(!WARE)";

 

so that if sString = "SOFTWXRE" then oMatch.Length would be > 0.

 

But this does not work.

 

What is most frustrating is that following 'prefix' approach does work:

 

String sMatchString = @"(?<!SOFT)WARE";

 

Suggestions?

Edited December 10, 2003 by ddx

[ddx]

Oops... small typo above. i meant to write oMatch.Length not Match.Length. I corrected the original post.