RegEx Multiple Matches -

i'm having trouble regex match. here string:

(<a href="http://www.test.com/test/test.jpg">lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</a>) lorem ipsum dolor <a href="http://www.test.com/test/test.jpg">sit amet</a> consectetur adipiscing elit. 

the regex pattern i'm using is:

/(<)(.*=")(.*)(">)(.*)(<\/.*>)/g 

the problem it's picking 1 match because of .* before in last matching group in regex pattern. want find 2 matches of pattern (which there in string). how stop @ first instance of > when searching? figure trick.

i've heard called 'non-greedy'? i've tried + , ? neither seem work i'm doing.

thanks!

1. fyi , fwiw, accepted wisdom on regex not best way parse html...
2. but if you're sticking regex, main problem .* quantifiers eat characters end of string. can fixed adding ? make quantifiers "lazy": .*?

the * quantifier means zero or more. causes . dot match every single character end of string... then, allow rest of regex match, engine backtracks... .* ends matching longest match, not shortest one. in contrast, .*? on road shortest match (with caveats explained in articles below.)

reference

• the many degrees of regex greed
• repetition star , plus