Xebar Saram <zeltakc@gmail.com> writes:

> thx again Eric
>
> i still have an issue with this when one of the symbols used to start
> /end the highlight is used in a sentence, for example using your
> code:
>
> (font-lock-add-keywords
>  'org-mode
>  '(("-1-\\([^-1-]+\\)-1-" (0 '(:weight ultra-bold :background "#
> DDFFDD" :foreground "#000000") t))))
>
> if i write this:
>
> -1- this is a test of 1x1 to show higlight -1-
>
> it will kill the highlight, if i use the same text omitting the '1'
> it works well, anyway around this issue? i thought it would have
> matcehd -1- but it seems it matches also just 1 by itself
>
> best wishes and thx again

Yup, the things inside the [^] construct, to _not_ be matched, are
treated as a list of single characters. So you're saying "anything
that's not a '1' or a '-'," but then you've got a '1' in the middle of
the line. If you want the highlighting to include any character, but not
span newlines, you could just use [^\n] instead.

At this point you'll probably want to read the regular expression part
of the manual:

(elisp) Regular Expressions

I think you mentioned you don't have a lot of programming experience.
That's a bit unfortunate, since regexps aren't a great place to start!
I'd recommend getting something that's "close enough", and not going
down the rabbit hole of perfect. Then start at the top of the
introduction to elisp...

Good luck,
Eric