Hi,

Please could somebody show me how to write a regular expression that  
matches when the input is not blank and it's not a specific word,  
e.g. dog.

For example, I would hope for these results:

'' =~ regexp       # nil
'dog' =~ regexp    # nil
'cat' =~ regexp    # not nil

I have tried various permutations and combinations involving (?!re)  
but I just can't find the answer.  In fact I'm beginning to doubt  
that (?!re) works at all on my system (Ruby 1.8.6)...but on balance  
it's probably me rather than my Ruby installation!

Thanks and regards,
Andy Stewart

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