ungreedy regex in javascript

a few days ago i wanted to use ungreedy regexs in javascript. first, let's see what an ungreedy regex is. look at the following example:

>>> "
foo
bar
".replace(/
f.*<\/p>/, '')
""

this is greedy. you want to get something like:

"
bar
"

right?

that would be ungreedy. in some other languages, there is a flag for this (php has 'U'), but in javascript, you need an other trick:

>>> "
foo
bar
".replace(/
f.*?<\/p>/, '')
"
bar
"

and yes, that's what we wanted. also it works for .+?, and so on.

ah and as a side note, it seems '.' does not match newlines, so you'll have to work around it like:

>>> "
foo\nbar
baz
".replace(/
f[\s\S]*?<\/p>/, '')
"
baz
"