backreferences

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

I'm not sure if this is even a good question:

     test2 ()

    {
    sstring="before inside after"
    if [[ "$sstring" = (#b)([^i]#inside)(*) ]];

    then
       echo "\n\ndo nothing\n\n"
    fi

    echo one $match[1]
    echo two $match[2]
    }


... all good.  But is is possible to populate 'match'
without the 'if' test? Point being that I don't really
want to 'do anything' except populate 'match'.  There's
no problem, I'm just wondering if it can be expressed
more simply and I'll bet it can.

Better question:

In this construction " [^i] " is it possible to use a
string rather than a character in the exclusion test?
I've found convoluted ways to do it, but is there anything
simple?