title: How to set the first character via regex?
body: <p>The first character can be anything except an equals sign (<code>=</code>).</p>
  
  <p>I made the following regex:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[^=].
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><code>ab</code>, <code>b2</code> etc will pass, and <code>=a</code> will not.</p>
  
  <p>But the thing is, I also want to accept single character:</p>
  
  <p><code>a</code> should also be accepted. How can I do that?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Update</strong></p>
  
  <p>You might wonder why I'm doing it. I have a URL regex</p>
  
  <p><code>(?!=)((www\.|(https?|ftp)://)[.a-z0-9-]+\.[a-z0-9/_:@=.+?,#%&amp;~-]*[^.'#!()?, &gt;&lt;;])</code></p>
  
  <p>but I don't want the URL to be parsed if it's right after the <code>=</code> character.</p>