Take this data as an example:
ID: JK546|Guitar: 0|Piano: 1|Violin: 0|Expiry: Aug14,2021
I was wondering if it's possible to create a regex that will return this set of matches
ID: JK546|Guitar: 0|Expiry: Aug14,2021
ID: JK546|Piano: 1|Expiry: Aug14,2021
ID: JK546|Violin: 0|Expiry: Aug14,2021
I did try creating one below:
ID: (?<id>\w+).*\|(?<instrument>\w+):\s(?<count>\d).*Expiry:\s(?<expiry>[\w\d]+)
but it only returned the one with the violin instrument. I would highly appreciate your insights on this.
I would not use a regular expression. Especially since the string ID: JK546|Guitar: 0|Expiry: Aug14,2021 does not appear in the string ID: JK546|Guitar: 0|Piano: 1|Violin: 0|Expiry: Aug14,2021, so it's not strictly a match, but more of a replacement. But there's no good way to get all replacements from all matches.
So, I'd just split the input string on |.
Then you want to compose a result string that is comprised of the first field, one of the middle fields, and the last field. You'll get one result for each middle field that exists. If it splits into N fields, you'll get N-2 results. e.g.: if it splits into 5 fields, then you'll get 3 results, one for each of the "middle" fields.
string input = "ID: JK546|Guitar: 0|Piano: 1|Violin: 0|Expiry: Aug14,2021";
string[] fields = input.Split('|');
for( int i = 1; i < fields.Length - 1; ++i) {
string result = string.Join("|", fields.First(), fields[i], fields.Last());
Console.WriteLine(result);
}
output:
ID: JK546|Guitar: 0|Expiry: Aug14,2021
ID: JK546|Piano: 1|Expiry: Aug14,2021
ID: JK546|Violin: 0|Expiry: Aug14,2021
A single regular expression to return multiple matches on multiple calls?
I wonder whether that is possible.
I’m not familiar with how to do regex processing in C#,
but this sed command will do what you want.
Perhaps you can understand how it works and adapt it to your needs:
sed -n ':loop; h; s/^\([^|]*|[^|]*\).*\(|.*\)$/\1\2/p; g; s/^\([^|]*\)|[^|]*\(|.*\)$/\1\2/; t loop'
For simplicity, let’s pretend that the input string is “A|B|C|D|E”.
What it does:
-n is the option to tell sed not to print anything automatically
(but only print when told to, with a p command).
:loop is a label for, effectively, a “goto”.
So use a while loop structure.
h saves the pattern space into the hold space.
In other words, make a copy of your string.
s/^\([^|]*|[^|]*\).*\(|.*\)$/\1\2/p captures the first two segments
and the last one, and prints the result.
So “A|B|C|D|E” becomes “A|B|E” (i.e., your first desired output).
g restores the saved string from the hold space into the pattern space.
In other words, retrieve the copy of the string that you saved.
s/^\([^|]*\)|[^|]*\(|.*\)$/\1\2/ captures the first segment,
skips the second, and then captures the rest.
So “A|B|C|D|E” becomes “A|C|D|E”.
t loop is the “goto” command.
It says to go back to the beginning of the loop
if the most recent substitution succeeded.
In other words, this is the end of the loop,
and the specification of the loop condition.
The second iteration of the loop will change “A|C|D|E” to “A|C|E”
and print it.
And then change “A|C|D|E” to “A|D|E” and iterate.
The third iteration of the loop will change “A|D|E” to “A|D|E” and print it.
(Obviously there is no change, because the .* in the middle of the regex
matches the zero-length string between “A|D” and “|E”.)
The final substitution changes “A|D|E” to “A|E”,
and then there is nothing left to find.
You can make use of the .NET Groups.Captures property to get the values of Guitar, Piano and Violin.
(ID: \w+\|)(\w+: \d+\|)+(Expiry: \w+,\d+)
The pattern matches:
(ID: \w+\|) Capture group 1 match ID: 1+ word chars and |
(\w+: \d+\|)+ Capture group 2 Repeat 1+ times matching 1+ word chars : 1+ digits |
(Expiry: \w+,\d+) Capture group 3 match Expiry: 1+ word chars , and 1+ digits
See a .NET regex demo | C# demo
For example
var str = "ID: JK546|Guitar: 0|Piano: 1|Violin: 0|Expiry: Aug14,2021";
string pattern = #"(ID: \w+\|)(\w+: \d+\|)+(Expiry: \w+,\d+)";
Match m = Regex.Match(str, pattern);
foreach(Capture c in m.Groups[2].Captures) {
Console.WriteLine(m.Groups[1].Value + c.Value + m.Groups[3].Value);
}
Output
ID: JK546|Guitar: 0|Expiry: Aug14,2021
ID: JK546|Piano: 1|Expiry: Aug14,2021
ID: JK546|Violin: 0|Expiry: Aug14,2021
It should be possible with look behind and look ahead:
string foo = #"ID: JK546 | Guitar: 0 | Piano: 1 | Violin: 0 | Expiry: Aug14,2021";
// First look at "Guitar: 0", "Piano: 1" and "Violin: 0". Then look behind "(?<= )" and search for the ID. Then look ahead "(?= )" and search for Expiry.
string pattern = #"(\w+: \d)(?<=(ID: [A-Z0-9]+).*?)(?=.*?(Expiry: \S+))";
foreach (var match in Regex.Matches(foo, pattern))
{
....
}
Fortunately c# is one of the few languages that can handle variable length look behinds.
Related
C# Regex
I have the following list of strings:
"New patient, brief"
"New patient, limited"
"Established patient, brief"
"Established patient, limited"
"New diet patient"
"Established diet patient"
"School Physical"
"Deposition, 1 hour"
"Deposition, 2 hour"
I would like to separate these strings into groups using regex.
The first pattern I see is:
"New" or "Established" -- will be the first word of the matched pattern. This word will need to be captured and returned. Of this pattern, "patient" must be present without need to capture. Any word after "patient" must be captured.
I've tried: ((?=.*\bNew\b))(?=.*\bpatient\b)([A-Za-z0-9\-]+)
but the return match gives:
Full match 0-3 `New`
Group 1. 0-0 ``
Group 2. 0-3 `New`
Not at all what I am looking for.
string input = "New patient, limited";
string pattern = #"((?=.*\bNew\b))(?=.*\bpatient\b)([A-Za-z0-9\-]+)";
MatchCollection matches = Regex.Matches(input, pattern);
GroupCollection groups = matches[0].Groups;
foreach (Match match in matches)
{
Console.WriteLine("First word: {0}", match.Groups[1].Value);
Console.WriteLine("Last words: {0}", match.Groups[2].Value);
Console.WriteLine();
}
Console.WriteLine();
Thank you for any help with this.
Edit #1
For strings like "New patient, limited"
output should be: "New" "limited"
For strings like "Deposition, 1 hour" where "hour" is present,
output should be: "Deposition, 1 hour"
For strings where there are no words after "patient" but "patient" is present, like
"New diet patient",
output should be: "New" "diet"
For strings where neither "patient" nor "hour" is present, the entire string should be returned. i.e like "School Physical" should return the entire string,
"School Physical".
As I said, this is my ultimate quest. At the moment, I am trying to focus on separating out only the first pattern :). Much Thanks.
I suggest using
^(?:(?!\b(?:New|Established)\b).)*$|\b(New|Established)\s+(?:patient\b\W*)?(.+)
See the regex demo
Details
^(?:(?!\b(?:New|Established)\b).)*$ - any string that has no New or Established as whole words
| - or
\b(New|Established) - a whole word New or Established (put into Group 1)
\s+ - 1+ whitespaces
(?:patient\b\W*)? - an optional non-capturing group matching 1 or 0 occurrences of patient followed with word boundary and 0+ non-word chars
(.+) - Group 2: any 1 or more chars other than line break chars.
The code will look like
var match = Regex.Match(s, #"^(?:(?!\b(?:New|Established)\b).)*$|\b(New|Established)\s+(?:patient\b\W*)?(.+)");
If Group 1 is not matched (!match.Groups[1].Success), grab the whole match, match.Value. Else, grab match.Groups[1].Value and match.Groups[2].Value.
Results:
I have the following RegEx pattern in order to determine some 3-digit exchanges of phone numbers:
(?:2(?:04|[23]6|[48]9|50)|3(?:06|43|65)|4(?:03|1[68]|3[178]|50)|5(?:06|1[49]|79|8[17])|6(?:0[04]|13|39|47)|7(?:0[59]|78|8[02])|8(?:[06]7|19|73)|90[25])
It looks pretty daunting, but it only yields around 40 or 50 numbers. Is there a way in C# to generate all numbers that match this pattern? Offhand, I know I can loop through the numbers 001 thru 999, and check each number against the pattern, but is there a cleaner, built-in way to just generate a list or array of matches?
ie - {"204","226","236",...}
No, there is no off the shelf tool to determine all matches given a regex pattern. Brute force is the only way to test the pattern.
Update
It is unclear why you are using (?: ) which is the "Match but don't capture". It is used to anchor a match, for example take this phone text phone:303-867-5309 where we don't care about the phone: but we want the number.
The pattern used would be
(?:phone\:)(\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4})
which would match the whole line, but the capture returned would just be the second match of the phone number 303-867-5309.
So the (?: ) as mentioned is used to anchor a match capture at a specific point; with text match text thrown away.
With that said, I have redone your pattern with comments and a test to 2000:
string pattern = #"
^ # Start at beginning of line so no mid number matches erroneously found
(
2(04|[23]6|49|[58]0) # 2 series only match 204, 226, 236, 249, 250, 280
| # Or it is not 2, then match:
3(06|43|65) # 3 series only match 306, 343, 365
)
$ # Further Anchor it to the end of the string to keep it to 3 numbers";
// RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace allows us to put the pattern over multiple lines and comment it. Does not
// affect regex parsing/processing.
var results = Enumerable.Range(0, 2000) // Test to 2000 so we don't get any non 3 digit matches.
.Select(num => num.ToString().PadLeft(3, '0'))
.Where (num => Regex.IsMatch(num, pattern, RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace))
.ToArray();
Console.WriteLine ("These results found {0}", string.Join(", ", results));
// These results found 204, 226, 236, 249, 250, 280, 306, 343, 365
I took the advice of #LucasTrzesniewski and just looped through the possible values. Since I know I’m dealing w/ 3-digit numbers, I just looped through the numbers/strings “000” thru “999” and checked for matches like this:
private static void FindRegExMatches(string pattern)
{
for (var i = 0; i < 1000; i++)
{
var numberString = i.ToString().PadLeft(3, '0');
if (!Regex.IsMatch(numberString, pattern)) continue;
Console.WriteLine("Found a match: {0}, numberString);
}
}
Trying to find the last instance of numbers after last dash in a string so
test-123-2-456 would return 456
123-test would return ""
123-test-456 would return 456
123-test-456sdfsdf would return 456
123-test-asd456 would return 456
The expression, #"[^-]*$", does not match the numbers though, and I have tried using [\d] but to no avail.
Sure, the simplest solution would be something like this:
(\d+)[^-]*$
This will match one or more digits, captured in group 1, followed by zero or more of any character other than a hyphen, followed by the end of the string. In other words, it will match any sequence of digits as long as there are no hyphens between that sequence and the end of the string. You then just have to extract group 1 from the match. For example:
var inputs = new[] {
"test-123-2-456",
"123-test",
"123-test-456",
"123-test-456sdfsdf",
"123-test-asd456"
};
foreach(var str in inputs)
{
var m = Regex.Match(str, #"(\d+)[^-]*$");
Console.WriteLine("{0} --> {1}", str, m.Groups[1].Value);
}
Produces:
test-123-2-456 --> 456
123-test -->
123-test-456 --> 456
123-test-456sdfsdf --> 456
123-test-asd456 --> 456
Alternatively, if you could use a negative lookahead like this:
\d+(?!.*-)
This will match one or more digit characters so long as they are not followed by a hyphen. Only the digits will be included in the match.
Note that these two options behave differently if there are two or more sets of numbers after the last -, e.g. foo-123bar456. In this case it's not entirely clear what you want to happen, but the first pattern will simply match everything starting from the first sequence of digits to the end (123bar456) with group 1 only containing the first sequence of digits (123). If you'd like to change this so that it only captures the last sequence of digits, place a \d inside the character class (i.e. (\d+)[^\d-]*$). The second second pattern would produce a separate match for each sequence digits (in this example, 123 and 456) but the Regex.Match method will only give you the first match.
I suggest to apply two regex-functions. Take the result of the first one as the input for the second one.
The first regex is:
-[0-9]+[^-]+$ // Take the last peace of your string lead by a minus (-)
// followed by digits ([0-9]+)
// and some ugly rest that doesn't contain another minus ([^-]+$)
The second regex is:
-[0-9]+ // Seperate the relevant digits from the ugly rest
// You know that there can only be one minus + digits part in it
Tested here: http://derekslager.com/blog/posts/2007/09/a-better-dotnet-regular-expression-tester.ashx
The latest group from this RegEx can get the last number for you:
[^-A-z][0-9]+[^A-z]
If you are looking at groups, you can write this code by matching groups to get the latest number:
var inputs = new[] {
"test-123-2-456",
"123-test",
"123-test-456",
"123-test-456sdfsdf",
"123-test-asd456"
};
var m = Regex.Match(str, #"([0-9]*)");
if(m.Groups.Length>1) //This will avoid the values starting with numbers only.
Console.WriteLine("{0} --> {1}", str, m.Groups[m.Groups.Length-1].Value);
I have following kind of string-sets in a text file:
<< /ImageType 1
/Width 986 /Height 1
/BitsPerComponent 8
/Decode [0 1 0 1 0 1]
/ImageMatrix [986 0 0 -1 0 1]
/DataSource <
803fe0503824160d0784426150b864361d0f8844625138a4562d178c466351b8e4763d1f904864523924964d27944a6552b964b65d2f984c665339a4d66d379c4e6753b9e4f67d3fa05068543a25168d47a4526954ba648202
> /LZWDecode filter >> image } def
There are 100s of Images defined like above.
I need to find all such images defined in the document.
Here is my code -
string txtFile = #"text file path";
string fileContents = File.ReadAllText(txtFile);
string pattern = #"<< /ImageType 1.*(\n|\r|\r\n)*image } def"; //match any number of characters between `<< /ImageType 1` and `image } def`
MatchCollection matchCollection = Regex.Matches(fileContents, pattern, RegexOptions.Singleline);
int count = matchCollection.Count; // returns 1
However, I am getting just one match - whereas there are around 600 images defined.
But it seems they all are matched in one because of 'newline' character used in pattern.
Can anyone please guide what do I need to modify the correct result of regex match as 600.
The reason is that regular expressions are usually greedy, i.e. the matches are always as long as possible. Thus, the image } def is contained in the .*. I think the best approach here would be to perform two separate regex queries, one for << /ImageType 1 and one for image } def. Every match of the first pattern would correspond to exactly one match of the second one and as these matches carry their indices in the original string, you can reconstruct the image by accessing the appropriate substring.
Instead of .* you should use the non-greedy quantifier .*?:
string pattern = #"<< /ImageType 1.*?image } def";
Here is a site that can help you out with REGEX that I use. http://webcheatsheet.com/php/regular_expressions.php.
if(preg_match('/^/[a-z]/i', $string, $matches)){
echo "Match was found <br />";
echo $matches[0];
}
I have the following regex, so far:
([0-9]+){1}\s*[xX]\s*([A-Za-z\./%\$\s\*]+)
to be used on strings such as:
2x Soup, 2x Meat Balls, 4x Iced Tea
My intent was to capture the number of times something was ordered, as well as the name of item ordered.
In this regular expression however, the multiplier 'x' gets captured before the title.
How can I make it so that the x is ignored, and what comes after the x (and a space) is captured?
You can't ignore something in the middle of the pattern. Therefore you do have your capturing groups.
([0-9]+){1}\s*[xX]\s*([A-Za-z\./%\$\s\*]+)
^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The marked parts of your pattern are stored in capturing groups, because of the brackets around them.
Your number is in group 1 and the name is in group 2. The "x" is not captured in a group.
How you now access your groups depends on the language you are using.
Btw. the {1} is obsolete.
So for c# try this:
string text = "2x Soup, 2x Meat Balls, 4x Iced Tea";
MatchCollection result = Regex.Matches(text, #"([0-9]+)\s*[xX]\s*([A-Za-z\./%\$\s\*]+)");
int counter = 0;
foreach (Match m in result)
{
counter++;
Console.WriteLine("Order {0}: " + m.Groups[1] + " " + m.Groups[2], counter);
}
Console.ReadLine();
Further I would change the regex to this, since it seems you want to match as name every character till the next comma
#"([0-9]+)\s*x\s*([^,]+)"
and use RegexOptions.IgnoreCase to avoid having to write [xX]