Lazy quantifier {,}? not working as I would expect

Question

I have an issue with lazy quantifiers. Or most likely I misunderstand how I am supposed to use them.

Testing on Regex101 My test string is let\'s say: 12345678

Answer 1

If you have a string containing numbers followed by a non-numeric, the minimum set of {1,5}? would always be 1 (so it's not necessary to have the range.) I don't think the lazy operator is actually working as we think on the numeric range.

If you make the first \d+ greedy, as below you'll get the minimum number of digits before the D.

(\d+)(\d{1,5}D) Matches 9D in the second group

If you make the first set of numbers lazy, then you'll get the maximum number of digits (5)

(\d+?)(\d{1,5}D) Matches 56789D in the second group

I think these regex expressions might be more in line with what you need.