Develop Reference

Matching and replacing function expressions

I need to do some very light parsing of C# (actually transpiled Razor code) to replace a list of function calls with textual replacements.
If given a set containing {"Foo.myFunc" : "\"def\"" } it should replace this code:
var res = "abc" + Foo.myFunc(foo, Bar.otherFunc( Baz.funk()));
with this:
var res = "abc" + "def"
I don't care about the nested expressions.
This seems fairly trivial and I think I should be able to avoid building an entire C# parser using something like this for every member of the mapping set:
find expression start (e.g. Foo.myFunc)
Push()/Pop() parentheses on a Stack until Count == 0.
Mark this as expression stop
replace everything from expression start until expression stop
But maybe I don't need to ... Is there a (possibly built-in) .NET library that can do this for me? Counting is not possible in the family of languages that RE is in, but maybe the extended regex syntax in C# can handle this somehow using back references?
edit:
As the comments to this answer demonstrates simply counting brackets will not be sufficient generally, as something like trollMe("(") will throw off those algorithms. Only true parsing would then suffice, I guess (?).

The trick for a normal string will be:
(?>"(\\"|[^"])*")
A verbatim string:
(?>#"(""|[^"])*")
Maybe this can help, but I'm not sure that this will work in all cases:
<func>(?=\()((?>/\*.*?\*/)|(?>#"(""|[^"])*")|(?>"(\\"|[^"])*")|\r?\n|[^()"]|(?<open>\()|(?<-open>\)))+?(?(open)(?!))
Replace <func> with your function name.
Useless to say that trollMe("\"(", "((", #"abc""de((f") works as expected.
DEMO

How do I substitute string and number values with a variable that says any string or any number?

I am using c# and need to rename a lot of files. They all follow the same naming convention. like AA-A0000-(1+)-A_words-sdsd_morewords. The only problem is the all follow this pattern but the A0000 and (1+) sections change file to file. How can I say if string follows that pattern than run my custom funciton on it?
How can I say if the file starts with two letters a hyphen the a letter followed by 4 numbers, another hyphen, a number, then another hyphen, then change the file name?

As the commenters have pointed out, Regular expressions are your answer. In .NET, this uses the Regex class. There are a number of tutorials for regular expressions that you can look at; the .NET version is documented at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/az24scfc.aspx.
Depending on how the different sections of the file name change in your example above, you can alter your regular expression to fit. So for instance,
Regex.Replace(fileName, #"[a-z ]+-A(\d{4}-\(\d+)", "BB-B$1", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
Will match AA-A0000-(1+)..., AA-A3456-(72+)..., C D-A3456-(72+)..., etc, and replace the A's (and "C D") with B's. See https://dotnetfiddle.net/hFpUkW for an example of this in action.

You can use regex.
If your filenames look, for example, like this:
aB-C0101-2-some text that contains-Numbers_01987etc.ext
then the pattern to match it would be:
[a-zA-Z]{2}-[a-zA-Z]\d{4}-\d-[\s0-9a-zA-Z_-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{3}
Here are some additional resources:
tutorial: http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorial.html
to test a regex online (there are a lot more):
http://www.regexr.com/
http://www.regexplanet.com/
example use of Regex.Replace() method in C#:
http://www.dotnetperls.com/regex-replace

.Net regex not replacing correctly

Background
I am trying to do some regex matching and replacing, but for some reason the replacement isn't correct in .NET.
Regex pattern - "^.*?/rebate/?$"
Input string - "/my-tax/rebate"
Replacement string - "/new-path/rebate"
Basically, if the word 'rebate' is seen in a string, the input string needs to be replaced entirely by the replacement string.
Problem
If I create a regex with the pattern and execute
patternMatch.Pattern.Replace("/my-tax/rebate", "/new-path/rebate")
I get /my-tax/new-path/rebate, which isn't correct.
But, if I execute -
new Regex(#"^.*?/rebate/?$").Replace("/my-tax/rebate", "/new-path/rebate"),
the result is correct - /new-path/rebate
Why is that?
patternMatch is an object with two properties - one Pattern (which is the Regex Pattern) and another one is TargetPath (which is the replacement string). In this example, I am only using the pattern property.
patternMatch.Pattern on debugging is
Here are the results during run time-

You are simply wrongly using the function. I'm not sure how you are getting /my-tax/new-path/rebate since it is giving me an error on ideone.com (Maybe you have a regex named Pattern?).
Anyway, you shouldn't have any issues with using the function like this:
patternMatch.Replace("/my-tax/rebate", "/new-path/rebate");
ideone demo

A number of points in your question are incorrect. The regex is replacing correctly.
Per #XiaoguangQiao's comment, what is patternMatch.Pattern.Replace? Your example...
var patternMatch = new Regex("^.*?/rebate/?$");
patternMatch.Pattern.Replace("/my-tax/rebate", "/new-path/rebate");
...errors with the message...
'System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex' does not contain a definition for 'Pattern' and no extension method 'Pattern' accepting a first argument of type 'System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex' could be found
...when I throw it into a quick LINQPad 4 query (set to C# Statement(s)).
pattern is a private string field of System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex; and patternMatch.Replace("/my-tax/rebate", "/new-path/rebate") - which I expect is what you meant - yields the correct result ("/new-path/rebate") rather than the incorrect result you said you get ("/my-tax/new-path/rebate").
Otherwise your pattern(s) (i.e. with and without the extra / that #rene pointed out) is fine for the input ("/my-tax/rebate") and replacement ("/new-path/rebate") you initially outline - insofar as they match and yield the result you want. You can check this outside your code in quick fiddles with the extra / and without the extra /.

Use String.Replace Method.
str.replace("rebate","new-path/rebate")
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fk49wtc1%28v=vs.110%29.aspx

how to replace the exact word by another in a list?

I have a list like :
george fg
michel fgu
yasser fguh
I would like to replace fg, fgu, and fguh by "fguhCool" I already tried something like this :
foreach (var ignore in NameToPoulate)
{
tempo = ignore.Replace("fg", "fguhCool");
NameToPoulate_t.Add(tempo);
}
But then "fgu" become "fguhCoolu" and "fguh" become "fguhCooluh" is there are a better idea ?
Thanks for your help.

I assume that this is a homework assignment and that you are being tested for the specific algorihm rather than any code that does the job.
This is probably what your teacher has in mind:
Students will realize that the code should check for "fguh" first, then "fgu" then "fg". The order is important because replacing "fg" will, as you have noticed, destroy a "fguh".
This will by some students be implemented as a loop with if-else conditions in them. So that you will not replace a "fg" that is within an already replaced "fguhCool".
But then you will find that the algorithm breaks down if "fg" and "fgu" are both within the same string. You cannot then allow the presence of "fgu" prevent you to check for "fg" at a different part of the string.
The answer that your teacher is looking for is probably that you should first locate "fguh", "fgu" and "fg" (in that order) and replace them with an intermediary string that doesn't contain "fg". Then after you have done that, you can search for that intermediary string and replace it with "fguhCool".

You could use regular expressions:
Regex.Replace(#"\bfg\b", "fguhCool");
The \b matches a so-called word boundary which means it matches the beginnnig or end of a word (roughly, but for this purpose enough).

Use a regular expression:
Regex.Replace("fg(uh?)?", "fguhCool");
An alternative would be replacing the long words for the short ones first, then replacing the short for the end value (I'm assuming all words - "fg", "fgu" and "fguh" - would map to the same value "fguhCool", right?)
tempo = ignore
.Replace("fguh", "fg")
.Replace("fgu", "fg")
.Replace("fg", "fguhCool");
Obs.: That assumes those words can appear anywhere in the string. If you're worried about whole words (i.e. cases where those words are not substrings of a bigger word), then see #Joey's answer (in this case, simple substitutions won't do, regexes are really the best option).

RegEx: Correct usage of lookbehind assertion and group definitions

I have the following string:
i:0#.w|domain\x123456
I know about the possibility to group searchterms by using <mysearchterm> and calling it via RegEx.Match(myRegEx).Result("${mysearchtermin}");.
I also know that I can lookbehind assertions like (?<= subexpression) via MSDN. Could someone help me in geting the (including the possibility to search for them via groups as shown before):
domain ("domain")
user account ("x12345")
I don't need anything from before the pipe character (nor the pipe character itself) - so basically I am interested in domain\x123456.

As others have noted, this can be done without regex, or without lookbehinds. That being said, I can think of reasons you might want them: to write a RegexValidator instead of having to roll up a CustomValidator, for example. In ASP.NET, CustomValidators can be a little longer to write, and sometimes a RegexValidator does the job just fine.
As far as lookbehinds, the main reason you'd want one for something like this is if the target string could contain irrelevant copies of the |domain\x123456 pattern:
foo#bar|domain\x999999 says: 'i:0#.w|domain\x888888i:0#.w|domain\x123456|domain\x000000'
If you only wanted to grab domain\x888888 and domain\x123456 out of that, a lookbehind could be useful. Or maybe you just want to learn about lookbehinds. Anyway, since we only have one sample input, I can only guess at the rules; so perhaps something like this:
#"(?<=[a-z]:\d#\.[a-z]\|)(?<domain>[^\\]*)\\(?<user>x\d+)"
Lookarounds are one of the most subtle and misunderstood features of regex, IMHO. I've gotten a lot of use out of them in preventing false positives, or in limiting the length of matches when I'm not trying to match the entire string (for example, if I want only the 3-digit numbers in blah 1234 123 1234567 123 foo, I can use (?<!\d)\d{3}(?!\d)). Here's a good reference if you want to learn more about named groups and lookarounds.

You can just use the regex #"\|([^\\]+)\\(.+)".
The domain and user will be in groups 1 and 2, respectively.

You don't need regular expressions for that.
var myString = #"i:0#.w|domain\x123456";
var relevantParts = myString.Split('|')[1].Split('\\');
var domain = relevantParts[0];
var user = relevantParts[1];
Explanation: String.Split(separator) returns an array of substrings separated by separator.
If you insist of using regular expressions, this is how you do it with named groups and Match.Result, based on SLaks answer (+1, by the way):
var myString = #"i:0#.w|domain\x123456";
var r = new Regex(#"\|(?<domain>[^\\]+)\\(?<user>.+)");
var match = r.Matches(myString)[0]; // get first match
var domain = match.Result("${domain}");
var user = match.Result("${user}");
Personally, however, I would prefer the following syntax, if you are just extracting the values:
var domain = match.Groups["domain"];
var user = match.Groups["user"];
And you really don't need lookbehind assertions here.