matching string except spaces and tabs that follow-CodePudding

Sample string, at the beginning of line is TAB, and between maxLen = 256 and ; are either spaces or tabs.

I need to match only the "TABmaxLen = 256" portion irgnoring the rest

maxLen = 256 ; Maximum string size 1

My regex doesn't work for some reason because it matches all up to ; includign spaces and tabs, but I need to ignore spaces and tabs before and including ;

(\t.*)(?!\s\t);

TABmaxLen = 256 is just a sample, it should match anything except spaces and tabs that follow and end with ;

EDIT:

More information:

This is sample ASM code, per line, I want to match only those lines which have inline comments, but only code, not spaces and tabs and not inline comments.

; a function result to a C     program.
    option casemap:none
    nl = 10                      ; ASCII code for newline
    maxLen = 256                 ; Maximum string size   1
    
    .data
    titleStr byte 'Listing 1 - 8', 0

regex should match from example above these 2 (including starting tab):

    nl = 10
    maxLen = 256

CodePudding user response：

You could match the tab, then capture any char except ; and match the ending whitespace chars until the ;

\t([^\s;][^;]*?)\s*;

Explanation

\t Match a tab
( Capture group 1
- [^\s;][^;]*? Match a single non whitespace char other than ; followed by matching any char other than ; non greedy
) Close group 1
\s*; Match optional whitespace chars followed by ;

See a regex101 demo.

Another option for a match only and lookarounds and asserting 1 or more whitespace chars at the end followed by ;

(?<=\t)[^\s;].*?(?=\s ;)

See another regex101 demo