How to detect if a string has single asterisk "*" or a double "**" and getting its contents

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#1

Hello, currently I’m working on a string parser which includes extracting text between asterisks and using it for some purpose. Currently, this algorithm works.

local str = "get this text: *foo*"
local textGotten = str:match("%b**")
-- I am using the %bxy pattern in to detect the text between the asterisks.
-- Now, when i print(str) -> "foo"

But, what I’m trying to do is figure out how to detect “*text*” and “**text**” with the double asterisks. Unfortunately the %bxy pattern isn’t working for me, and I attempted to perhaps subsitute x for [**] and y for [**] for the pattern → “%b[**][**]”. As good of an attempt it was, this did not properly collect the text in between the double asterisk.

Is there a pattern I can use to capture text between a double, or even triple asterisk using pure string patterns/regex, without running the %b** pattern twice(which works, but is not ideal.)?

#2 
local strings = "*lol*"

if strings:match("%*.*%*") then
	print("Double asterisk enclosed string!")
end

%bxy is essentially useless, I have no idea why it was added with the other string pattern modifiers.

#3

I use %bxy to output an array of all strings enclosed in for example multiple brackets or asterisks in one string which is much faster than doing the string.split method. Thanks!

#4

Could you not use :gmatch() to iterate over sub-strings of a subject string which match a specific pattern? And no problem.