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I have a macros in my tex-file like \tmp{#1}{#2} and I would like to replace it with, e.g., a string. However, if I search for \\tmp\{.*\}\{.*\} the search also highlights entire constructions like

\tmp{bla}{bla} blabla. In \cite{bla}

i.e. it does not stop at the second instance of closing "}" as expected but goes to the third one.

Is it a bug or a normal behaviour please?

Regards,

Ignat Fialkovskiy
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    Welcome to TeX.SX! .* is a greedy expression, which means it will match as much as possible. Try the lazy expression .*?, which will match as few as possible: \\tmp\{.*?\}\{.*?\}. However TeXStudio was already reported to not accept the lazy quantifier locally, but only as a global option: https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/506904/134574 – Phelype Oleinik Oct 01 '19 at 09:25
  • If there are never any nested {} within #1 and 'e you could use \{[^\{\}]*\} to match {..} with no { or } between them. If you actually need to step over matching braces and match things like {zzz{vbb}zzz} then the "regular" in "regular expressions" should mean that is not possible (although some systems provide extended syntax to match non-regular expressions) – David Carlisle Oct 01 '19 at 10:30

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