String match help

[FangYX]

How to get only up to the second str?

(I want the output is "str a str")

Quote

text="str a str bc str cde str"

print(string.match(text, "str.*str"))

if like that the output always show the last str

[CmP]

Use "-" quantifier instead of "*": 

string.match(text, "str.-str")

From Lua reference manual (https://www.lua.org/manual/5.3/manual.html#6.4.1) :

Quote

A pattern item can be

• ...
• a single character class followed by '-', which also matches zero or more repetitions of characters in the class. Unlike '*', these repetition items will always match the shortest possible sequence;
• ...