Lets say I have a text file with the line below within it. I want to take both values within the quotations by matching between (" and "), so that would be I retreive ABC and DEF and put them in a string list or something, what's the best way of doing this? It's so annoying
If EXAMPLEA("ABC") AND EXAMPLEB("DEF")
Assuming a case where the value between the double quotes can not contain escaped double quotes might work like this:
var text = "If EXAMPLEA(\"ABC\") AND EXAMPLEB(\"DEF\")";
Regex pattern = new Regex("\"[^\"]*\"");
foreach (Match match in pattern.Matches(text))
{
Console.WriteLine(match.Value.Trim('"'));
}
But this is only one of the many ways you could do it and maybe not the smartest way out there. Try something yourself!
Best way...
List<string> matches=Regex.Matches(File.ReadAllText(yourPath),"(?<="")[^""]*(?="")")
.Cast<Match>()
.Select(x=>x.Value)
.ToList();
This pattern should do the trick:
\"([^"]*)\"
string str = "If EXAMPLEA(\"ABC\") AND EXAMPLEB(\"DEF\")";
MatchCollection matched = Regex.Matches(str, #"\""([^\""]*)\""");
foreach (Match match in matched)
{
Console.WriteLine(match.Groups[1].Value);
}
Note that the quotation marks are doubled in the actual code in order to escape them. And the code refers to group [1] to get just the part inside the parentheses.
IEnumerable<string> matches =
from Match match
in Regex.Matches(File.ReadAllText(filepath), #"\""([^\""]*)\""")
select match.Groups[1].Value;
Others already posted some answers, but my takes into account that you just want ABC and DEF in your example, without quotation marks and save it in a IEnumerable<string>.
Related
I'm reading from a file, and need to find a string that is encapsulated by two identical non-ascii values/control seperators, in this case 'RS'
How would I go about doing this? Would I need some form of regex?
RS stands for Record Separator, and it has a value of 30 (or 0x1E in hexadecimal). You can use this regular expression:
\x1E([\w\s]*?)\x1E
That matches the RS, then matches any letter, number or space, and then again the RS. The ? is to make the regex match as less characters as possible, in case there are more RS characters afterwards.
If you prefer not to match numbers, you could use [a-zA-Z\s] instead of [\w\s].
Example:
string fileContents = "Something \u001Eyour string\u001E more things \u001Eanother text\u001E end.";
MatchCollection matches = Regex.Matches(fileContents, #"\x1E([\w\s]*?)\x1E");
if (matches.Count == 0)
return; // Not found, display an error message and exit.
foreach (Match match in matches)
{
if (match.Groups.Count > 1)
Console.WriteLine(match.Groups[1].Value);
}
As you can see, you get a collection of Match, and each match.Value will have the whole matched string including the separators. match.Groups will have all matched groups, being the first one again the whole matched string (that's by default) and then each of your groups (those between parenthesis). In this case, you only have one in your regex, so you just need the second one on that list.
Using regex you can do something like this:
string pattern = string.Format("{0}(.*){1}",firstString,secondString);
var matches = Regex.Matches(myString, pattern);
foreach (Match match in matches)
{
foreach (Capture capture in match.Captures)
{
//Do stuff, with the current you should remove firstString and secondString from the capture.Value
}
}
After that use Regex.match to find the string that match with the pattern built before.
Remember to escape all the special char for regex.
You can use Regex.Matches, I'm using X as the separator in this example:
var fileContents = "Xsomething1X Xsomething2X Xsomething3X";
var results = Regex.Matches(fileContents, #"(X).*?(\1)");
The you can loop on results to do anything you want with the matches.
The \1 in the regex means "reference first group". I've put X between () so it is going to be group 1, the I use \1 to say that the match in this place should be exactly the same as the group 1.
You don't need a regular expression for that.
Read the contents of the file (File.ReadAllText).
Split on the separator character (String.Split).
If you know there's only one occurrence of your string, take the second array element (result[1]). Otherwise, take every other entry (result.Where((x, i) => i % 2 == 1)).
I want to extract only those words within double quotes. So, if the content is:
Would "you" like to have responses to your "questions" sent to you via email?
The answer must be
you
questions
Try this regex:
\"[^\"]*\"
or
\".*?\"
explain :
[^ character_group ]
Negation: Matches any single character that is not in character_group.
*?
Matches the previous element zero or more times, but as few times as possible.
and a sample code:
foreach(Match match in Regex.Matches(inputString, "\"([^\"]*)\""))
Console.WriteLine(match.ToString());
//or in LINQ
var result = from Match match in Regex.Matches(line, "\"([^\"]*)\"")
select match.ToString();
Based on #Ria 's answer:
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string str = "Would \"you\" like to have responses to your \"questions\" sent to you via email?";
var reg = new Regex("\".*?\"");
var matches = reg.Matches(str);
foreach (var item in matches)
{
Console.WriteLine(item.ToString());
}
}
The output is:
"you"
"questions"
You can use string.TrimStart() and string.TrimEnd() to remove double quotes if you don't want it.
I like the regex solutions. You could also think of something like this
string str = "Would \"you\" like to have responses to your \"questions\" sent to you via email?";
var stringArray = str.Split('"');
Then take the odd elements from the array. If you use linq, you can do it like this:
var stringArray = str.Split('"').Where((item, index) => index % 2 != 0);
This also steals the Regex from #Ria, but allows you to get them into an array where you then remove the quotes:
strText = "Would \"you\" like to have responses to your \"questions\" sent to you via email?";
MatchCollection mc = Regex.Matches(strText, "\"([^\"]*)\"");
for (int z=0; z < mc.Count; z++)
{
Response.Write(mc[z].ToString().Replace("\"", ""));
}
I combine Regex and Trim:
const string searchString = "This is a \"search text\" and \"another text\" and not \"this text";
var collection = Regex.Matches(searchString, "\\\"(.*?)\\\"");
foreach (var item in collection)
{
Console.WriteLine(item.ToString().Trim('"'));
}
Result:
search text
another text
Try this (\"\w+\")+
I suggest you to download Expresso
http://www.ultrapico.com/Expresso.htm
I needed to do this in C# for parsing CSV and none of these worked for me so I came up with this:
\s*(?:(?:(['"])(?<value>(?:\\\1|[^\1])*?)\1)|(?<value>[^'",]+?))\s*(?:,|$)
This will parse out a field with or without quotes and will exclude the quotes from the value while keeping embedded quotes and commas. <value> contains the parsed field value. Without using named groups, either group 2 or 3 contains the value.
There are better and more efficient ways to do CSV parsing and this one will not be effective at identifying bad input. But if you can be sure of your input format and performance is not an issue, this might work for you.
Slight improvement on answer by #ria,
\"[^\" ][^\"]*\"
Will recognize a starting double quote only when not followed by a space to allow trailing inch specifiers.
Side effect: It will not recognize "" as a quoted value.
I am trying to substrings if they have certain format. Substring Regex query is [CENAOD(xyx)]. I have done following code but when running this in cycle it says all results match which is wrong. Where I've done something wrong?
string strRegex = #"(\[CENAOD\((\S|\W)*\)\])*";
string strCenaOd = sReader["intro"].ToString()
if (Regex.IsMatch(strCenaOd, strRegex, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase))
{
string = (want to read content of ( ) = xyz in example)
}
Remove the outer ( ... )*.
That says no match is a good match too.
Or use + instead of *.
Adding to #Kent's and #leppie's answers, the code surrounding the regex needs work, too. I think this is what you were trying for:
string strRegex = #"\[CENAOD\(([^)]*)\)\]";
string strCenaOd = sReader["intro"].ToString();
Match m = Regex.Match(strCenaOd, strRegex, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
if (m.Success)
{
string content = m.Groups[1];
// ...
}
IsMatch() is a simple yes-or-no check, it doesn't provide any way to retrieve the matched text.
I especially want to comment on (\S|\W)*, from your regex. First, \S|\W is a very inefficient way to match any character. . is usually all you need, but as Kent pointed out, [^)] (i.e., any character except )) is more appropriate in this case. Also, by placing the * outside the round brackets, you'll only ever capture the last character. ([^)]*) captures all of them. For more details, read this.
if you said "all strings", how about:
\[CENAOD\([^\)]*\)\]
i'v got code
s = Regex.Match(item.Value, #"\/>.*?\*>", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase).Value;
it returns string like '/>test*>', i can replace symbols '/>' and '*>', but how can i return string without this symbols , only string 'test' between them?
You can save parts of the regex by putting ()'s around the area. so for your example:
// item.Value == "/>test*>"
Match m = Regex.Match(item.Value, #"\/>(.*?)\*>");
Console.WriteLine(m.Groups[0].Value); // prints the entire match, "/>test*>"
Console.WriteLine(m.Groups[1].Value); // prints the first saved group, "test*"
I also removed RegexOptions.IgnoreCase because we aren't dealing with any letters specifically, whats an uppercase /> look like? :)
You can group patterns inside the regx and get those from the match
var match= Regex.Match(item.Value, #"\/>(?<groupName>.*)?\*>", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
var data= match.Groups["groupName"].Value
You can also use look-ahead and look-behind. For your example it would be:
var value = Regex.Match(#"(?<=\/>).*?(?=\*>)").Value;
I am a complete newb when it comes to regex, and would like help to make an expression to match in the following:
{ValidFunctionName}({parameter}:"{value}")
{ValidFunctionName}({parameter}:"{value}",
{parameter}:"{value}")
{ValidFunctionName}()
Where {x} is what I want to match, {parameter} can be anything $%"$ for example and {value} must be enclosed in quotation marks.
ThisIsValid_01(a:"40")
would be "ThisIsValid_01", "a", "40"
ThisIsValid_01(a:"40", b:"ZOO")
would be "ThisIsValid_01", "a", "40", "b", "ZOO"
01_ThisIsntValid(a:"40")
wouldn't return anything
ThisIsntValid_02(a:40)
wouldn't return anything, as 40 is not enclosed in quotation marks.
ThisIsValid_02()
would return "ThisIsValid_02"
For a valid function name I came across: "[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z_0-9]*"
But I can't for the life of me figure out how to match the rest.
I've been playing around on http://regexpal.com/ to try to get valid matches to all conditions, but to no avail :(
It would be nice if you kindly explained the regex too, so I can learn :)
EDIT: This will work, uses 2 regexs. The first get the function name and everything inside it, the second extracts each pair of params and values from what's inside the function's brackets. You cannot do this with a single regex. Add some [ \t\n\r]* for whitespace.
Regex r = new Regex(#"(?<function>\w[\w\d]*?)\((?<inner>.*?)\)");
Regex inner = new Regex(#",?(?<param>.+?):""(?<value>[^""]*?)""");
string input = "_test0(a:\"lolololol\",b:\"2\") _test1(ghgasghe:\"asjkdgh\")";
List<List<string>> matches = new List<List<string>>();
MatchCollection mc = r.Matches(input);
foreach (Match match in mc)
{
var l = new List<string>();
l.Add(match.Groups["function"].Value);
foreach (Match m in inner.Matches(match.Groups["inner"].Value))
{
l.Add(m.Groups["param"].Value);
l.Add(m.Groups["value"].Value);
}
matches.Add(l);
}
(Old) Solution
(?<function>\w[\w\d]*?)\((?<param>.+?):"(?<value>[^"]*?)"\)
(Old) Explanation
Let's remove the group captures so it is easier to understand: \w[\w\d]*?\(.+?:"[^"]?"\)
\w is the word class, it is short for [a-zA-Z_]
\d is the digit class, it is short for [0-9]
\w[\w\d]*? Makes sure there is valid word character for the start of the function, and then matches zero or more further word or digit characters.
\(.+? Matches a left bracket then one or more of any characters (for the parameter)
:"[^"]*?"\) Matches a colon, then the opening quote, then zero or more of any character except quotes (for the value) then the close quote and right bracket.
Brackets (or parens, as some people call them) as escaped with the backslashes because otherwise they are capturing groups.
The (?<name> ) captures some text.
The ? after each the * and + operators makes them non-greedy, meaning that they will match the least, rather than the most, amount of text.
(Old) Use
Regex r = new Regex(#"(?<function>\w[\w\d]*?)\((?<param>.+?):""(?<value>[^""]*?)""");
string input = "_test0(aa%£$!:\"lolololol\") _test1(ghgasghe:\"asjkdgh\")";
List<string[]> matches = new List<string[]>();
if(r.IsMatch(input))
{
MatchCollection mc = r.Matches(input);
foreach (Match match in mc)
matches.Add(new[] { match.Groups["function"].Value, match.Groups["param"].Value, match.Groups["value"].Value });
}
EDIT: Now you've added an undefined number of multiple parameters, I would recommend making your own parser rather than using regexs. The above example only works with one parameter and strictly no whitespace. This will match multiple parameters with strict whitespace but will not return the parameters and values:
\w[\w\d]*?\(.+?:"[^"]*?"(,.+?:"[^"]*?")*\)
Just for fun, like above but with whitepace:
\w[\w\d]*?[ \t\r\n]*\([ \t\r\n]*.+?[ \t\r\n]*:[ \t\r\n]*"[^"]*?"([ \t\r\n]*,[ \t\r\n]*.+?[ \t\r\n]*:[ \t\r\n]*"[^"]*?")*[ \t\r\n]*\)
Capturing the text you want will be hard, because you don't know how many captures you are going to have and as such regexs are unsuited.
Someone else has already given an answer that gives you a flat list of strings, but in the interest of strong typing and proper class structure, I’m going to provide a solution that encapsulates the data properly.
First, declare two classes:
public class ParamValue // For a parameter and its value
{
public string Parameter;
public string Value;
}
public class FunctionInfo // For a whole function with all its parameters
{
public string FunctionName;
public List<ParamValue> Values;
}
Then do the matching and populate a list of FunctionInfos:
(By the way, I’ve made some slight fixes to the regexes... it will now match identifiers correctly, and it will not include the double-quotes as part of the “value” of each parameter.)
Regex r = new Regex(#"(?<function>[\p{L}_]\w*?)\((?<inner>.*?)\)");
Regex inner = new Regex(#",?(?<param>.+?):""(?<value>[^""]*?)""");
string input = "_test0(a:\"lolololol\",b:\"2\") _test1(ghgasghe:\"asjkdgh\")";
var matches = new List<FunctionInfo>();
if (r.IsMatch(input))
{
MatchCollection mc = r.Matches(input);
foreach (Match match in mc)
{
var l = new List<ParamValue>();
foreach (Match m in inner.Matches(match.Groups["inner"].Value))
l.Add(new ParamValue
{
Parameter = m.Groups["param"].Value,
Value = m.Groups["value"].Value
});
matches.Add(new FunctionInfo
{
FunctionName = match.Groups["function"].Value,
Values = l
});
}
}
Then you can access the collection nicely with identifiers like FunctionName:
foreach (var match in matches)
{
Console.WriteLine("{0}({1})", match.FunctionName,
string.Join(", ", match.Values.Select(val =>
string.Format("{0}: \"{1}\"", val.Parameter, val.Value))));
}
Try this:
^\s*(?<FunctionName>[A-Za-z][A-Za-z_0-9]*)\(((?<parameter>[^:]*):"(?<value>[^"]+)",?\s*)*\)
^\s*(?<FunctionName>[A-Za-z][A-Za-z_0-9]*) matches the function name, ^ means start of the line, so that the first character in string must match. You can keep you remove the whitespace capture if you don't need it, I just added it to make the match a little more flexible.
The next set \(((?<parameter>[^:]*):"(?<value>[^"]+)",?)*\) means capture each parameter-value pair inside the parenthesis. You have to escape the parenthesis for the function since they are symbols within the regex syntax.
The ?<> inside parenthesis are named capture groups, which when supported by a library, as they are in .NET, make grabbing the groups in the matches a little easier.
Here:
\w[\w\d]*\s*\(\s*(?:(\w[\w\d]*):("[^"]*"|\d+))*\s*\)
Visualization of that regex here.
For Problems like that I always suggest people not to "find" a single regex but to write multiple regex sharing the work.
But here is my quick shot:
(?<funcName>[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z_0-9]*)
\(
(?<ParamGroup>
(?<paramName>[^(]+?)
:
"(?<paramValue>[^"]*)"
((,\s*)|(?=\)))
)*
\)
The whitespaces are there for better readability. Remove them or set the option to ignore pattern whitespaces.
This regex passes all your test cases:
^(?<function>[A-Za-z][\w]*?)\(((?<param>[^:]*?):"(?<value>[^"]*?)",{0,1}\s*)*\)$
This works on multiple parameters and no parameters. It also handles special characters in the param name and whitespace after the comma. There may need to be some adjustments as your test cases do not cover everything you indicate in your text.
Please note that \w usually includes digits and is not appropriate as the leading character of the function name. Reference: http://www.regular-expressions.info/charclass.html#shorthand