PHP preg_match any character except word [duplicate]

Question

This question already has an answer here:

• Regular expression to match a line that doesn't contain a word 29 answers
• Regular Expression block negation 1 answer

To match any character except specified character (in this example "f") I use [^f]+.

But how to match any character except specified word? Something like [^word]+

Example:

haystack: "bla1 bla2 bla3 bla4 hello bla5 bla6 bla7" (haystack contains HTML and newlines)

needle: "bla1 bla2 bla3 bla4 "

So I want to catch everything from start untill "hello"

Answer 1

The linked possible duplicate is about matching a row that does not contain a specified word. I am not sure if it is, what is asked here.

If you want to match everything in a string but not the specified word you have to use the anchor \b word boundary instead of ^ start of a string and $ end of a string.

For example

\b(?:(?!your).)+\b

to match everything except the word "your"

See it here on Regexr

(?!your) is a negative lookahead assertion that is true, if the string "your" is not following the current position.