Finding SHORTEST Text

[waltzmn]

I feel as if I ought to know this, but I just can't make it work.

I have a list of bibliographic references that I need to clean up. Every entry has an abbreviation at the beginning, followed by a colon and space, then the actual entry. Here are three example lines:

Chambers: E. K. Chambers, _English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages_, Oxford, 1945, 1947
Chaucer/Benson: Larry D. Benson, general editor, _The Riverside Chaucer_, third edition, Houghton Mifflin, 1987
Dobson/Taylor: R. B. Dobson and J. Taylor, _Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw_, University of Pittsburg Press, 1976

What I want to eliminate is everything up to the first colon (the parts shown in bold), leaving the rest. So the above should become

E. K. Chambers, _English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages_, Oxford, 1945, 1947
Larry D. Benson, general editor, _The Riverside Chaucer_, third edition, Houghton Mifflin, 1987
R. B. Dobson and J. Taylor, _Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw_, University of Pittsburg Press, 1976

So what tried to do is change
\n[^\n\f]+\: +
that is, (return)(any text)(colon)(space)(1+)
to just plain
\n
that is, (return).

This of course works for the first two lines, but the third line comes back as

An Introduction to the English Outlaw_, University of Pittsburg Press, 1976

It took all text to the last colon in the line, not the first colon.

How do I get the shortest match, not the longest?

[phspaelti]

"+" gives a 'greedy' repetition
"+?" gives the shortest.

By the way in your expression you can just use a position match rather than 'replacing' the return:

^[^\n\f]+?\: +


PS: If you use the Find box, the menus have these repeaters listed

[waltzmn]

phspaelti wrote:

"+" gives a 'greedy' repetition
"+?" gives the shortest.

Thank you!

PS: If you use the Find box, the menus have these repeaters listed

Actually, I did use the Find box; I can't remember that "[^\n\f]" part. But I didn't know what I should be looking for.

Again, thank you.