Why is a single \n getting spanned?

[WilDoane]

No description provided.

[briandk]

@WilDoane writes:

I think [^:]* is matching \n.

In the example below, the regexp will match the first line and all characters on the second line prior to the colon.

[^:]*

#### hhhh
a: jwjwjw

That is, the above example matches #### hhhh\na

Compare the above regexp to an expression that matches anything not a colon that is followed by a newline:

[^:\n]*

#### hhhh
a: jwjwjw

The modified expression stops matching at the newline, so one could capture just the #### hhhh part.

Subsequently, the JavaScript might be able to be rewritten as:

var speechWithSpeaker = /^\s*([^\n:]*):\s+(.*)/;