# Sayregexp with special characters

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/sayregexp-with-special-characters/11947
**Category:** Web Sources Discussion
**Created:** [May 1, 2011, 7:38am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/sayregexp-with-special-characters/11947 "2011-05-01T07:38:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![vkostas](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/vkostas/32/227_2.png) [@vkostas](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/vkostas)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2011, 7:38am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/sayregexp-with-special-characters/11947/1 "2011-05-01T07:38:59Z")

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I want to extract the **begin** and **end** attribute values from the tag **life-span**.  
e.g.  
  
or  
  
or  
  
This tag is optional (sometimes is returned from API, sometimes not).

1. sayregexp "(?\<=\<life-span end=")[^"]+(?=")" ", " "". **Works OK**.
2. sayregexp "(?\<=\<life-span begin=" **.+**" end=")[^"]+(?=")" ", " "". **FAILS**. I found from another thread that mp3tag regexp are based on PERL so lookbehind must be fixed length.  
Any idea how to extract those attributes? All **Life-span** , **Begin** and **end** are optional. **Begin** and **end** order is random.