I need to strip unknown characters from the end of a string returned from an SQL database. I also need to log when a special character occurs in the string.
What's the best way to do this?
You can use the Trim() method to trim blanks or specific characters from the end of a string. If you need to trim a certain number of characters you can use the Substring() method. You can use Regexs (System.Text.RegularExpressions namespace) to match patterns in a string and detect when they occur. See MSDN for more info.
If you need more help you'll need to provide a bit more info on what exactly you're trying to do.
First define what are unknown characters (chars other than 0-9, a to z and A to Z ?) and put them in an array
Loop trough the characters of a string and check if the char occurs, if so remove.
you can also to a String.Replace with as param the unknown char, and replaceparam ''.
Since you've specified that the legal characters are only alphanumeric, you could do something like this:
Match m = Regex.Match(original, "^([0-9A-Za-z]*)(.*)$");
string good = m.Groups[1].Value;
string bad = m.Groups[2].Value;
if (bad.Length > 0)
{
// log bad characters
}
Console.WriteLine(good);
Your definition of the problem is not precise yet this is a fast trick to do so:
string input;
...
var trimed = input.TrimEnd(new[] {'#','$',...} /* array of unwanted characters */);
if(trimed != input)
myLogger.Log(input.Replace(trimed, ""));
check out the Regex.Replace methods...there are lots of overloads. You can use the Match methods for the logging to identify all matches.
String badString = "HELLO WORLD!!!!";
Regex regex = new Regex("!{1,}$" );
String newString = regex.Replace(badString, String.Empty);
Related
I am really confused here. I have written a snippet of code in C# that is passed a possible file pathway. If it contains a character specified in a regex string, it should return false. However, the regex function Match refuses to find anything matching (I even set it to a singular character I knew was in the string), resulting in severe irritation from me.
The code is:
static bool letterTest(string pathway)
{
bool validPath = false;
char[] c = Path.GetInvalidPathChars();
string test = new string(c);
string regex = "["+test+"]";
string spTest = "^[~#%&*\\{}+<>/\"|]";
Match match = Regex.Match(pathway, spTest);
if (!match.Success)
{
validPath = true;
}
return validPath;
}
The string I pass to it is: #"C:/testing/invalid#symbol"
What am I doing wrong/misunderstanding with the regex, or is it something other than the regex that I have messed up?
Remove the initial caret from your regex:
[~#%&*\\{}+<>/\"|]
You are requiring that the path begin with one of those characters. By removing that constraint, it will search the whole string for any of those characters.
But why not use the framework to do the work for you?
Check this out: Check if a string is a valid Windows directory (folder) path
Instead of a regular expression you can just do the following.
static bool letterTest(string pathway)
{
char[] badChars = Path.GetInvalidPathChars();
return pathway.All(c => !badChars.Contains(c));
// or
// return !pathway.Any(c => badChars.Contains(c));
// or
// return badChars.All(bc => !pathway.Contains(bc));
// or
// return !badChars.Any(bc => pathway.Contains(bc));
}
Someone has already pointed out the caret that was anchoring your match to the first character. But there's another error you may not be aware of yet. This one has to do with your use of string literals. What you have now is a traditional, C-style string literal:
"[~#%&*\\{}+<>/\"|]"
...which becomes this regex:
[~#%&*\{}+<>/"|]
The double backslash has become a single backslash, which is treated as an escape for the following brace (\{). The brace doesn't need escaping inside a character class, but it's not considered a syntax error.
However, the regex will not detect a backslash as you intended. To do that, you need two backslashes in the regex, so there should be four backslashes in the string literal:
"[~#%&*\\\\{}+<>/\"|]"
Alternatively, you can use a C# verbatim string literal. Backslashes have no special meaning in a verbatim string. The only thing that needs special handling is the quotation mark, which you escape by adding another quotation mark:
#"[~#%&*\\{}+<>/""|]"
you have to escape the / literal
"^[~#%&*\\{}+<>\/\"|]"
Caret stands for negation of the character group. Removing it from spTest solves this issue.
string spTest = "[~#%&*\\{}+<>/\"|]";
what is the best way to trim ALL non alpha numeric characters from the beginning and end of a string ? I tried to add characters that I do no need manually but it doesn't work well and use the . I just need to trim anything not alphanumeric.
I tried using this function:
string something = "()&*1#^#47*^#21%Littering aaaannnndóú(*&^1#*32%#**)7(#9&^";
string somethingNew = Regex.Replace(something, #"[^\p{L}-\s]+", "");
But it removes all characters that are non alpha numeric from the string. What I basically want is like this:
"test1" -> test1
#!#!2test# -> 2test
(test3) -> test3
##test4---- -> test4
I do want to support unicode characters but not symbols..
EDIT:
The output of the example should be:
Littering aaaannnndóú
Regards
Assuming you want to trim non-alphanumeric characters from the start and end of your string:
s = new string(s.SkipWhile(c => !char.IsLetterOrDigit(c))
.TakeWhile(char.IsLetterOrDigit)
.ToArray());
#"[^\p{L}\s-]+(test\d*)|(test\d*)[^\p{L}\s-]+","$1"
You can use String function String.Trim Method (Char[]) in .NET library to trim the unnecessary characters from the given string.
From MSDN : String.Trim Method (Char[])
Removes all leading and trailing occurrences of a set of characters
specified in an array from the current String object.
Before trimming the unwanted characters, you need to first identify whether the character is Letter Or Digit, if it is non-alphanumeric then you can use String.Trim Method (Char[]) function to remove it.
you need to use Char.IsLetterOrDigit() function to identify wether the character is alphanumeric or not.
From MSDN: Char.IsLetterOrDigit()
Indicates whether a Unicode character is categorized as a letter or a
decimal digit.
Try This:
string str = "()&*1#^#47*^#21%Littering aaaannnndóú(*&^1#*32%#**)7(#9&^";
foreach (char ch in str)
{
if (!char.IsLetterOrDigit(ch))
str = str.Trim(ch);
}
Output:
1#^#47*^#21%Littering aaaannnndóú(*&^1#*32%#**)7(#9
If you need to remove any character which is not alphanumeric, you can use IsLetterOrDigit paired with a Where to go through every character. And because we're working at the char level, we'll need a little Concat at the end to bring everything back into a string.
string result = string.Concat(input.Where(char.IsLetterOrDigit));
which you can easily convert into an extension method
public static class Extensions
{
public static string ToAlphaNum(this string input)
{
return string.Concat(input.Where(char.IsLetterOrDigit));
}
}
that you can use like this :
string testString = "#!#!\"(test123)\"";
string result = testString.ToAlphaNum(); //test123
Note: this will remove every non-alphanumeric character from your string, if you really need to remove only those at the beginning/end, please add more details about what defines a beginning or an end and add more examples.
And you could also replace all the non-letters/numbers at the beginning and/or end of the line:
^[^\p{L}\p{N}]*|[^\p{L}\p{N}]*$
used as
resultString = Regex.Replace(subjectString, #"^[^\p{L}\p{N}]*|[^\p{L}\p{N}]*$", "", RegexOptions.Multiline);
If you really want to only remove characters at the beginning and end of the "String" and not do this line by line, then remove the ^$ match at linebreak option (RegexOption.Multiline)
If you wanted to include leading or trailing underscores, as characters to be retained, you could simplify the regex to:
^\W+|\W+$
The core of the regex:
[^\p{L}\p{N}]
is a negated character class which includes all of the characters in the Unicode class of Letters \p{L} or Numbers \p{N}
In other words:
Trim non-unicode alphanumeric characters
^[^\p{L}\p{N}]*|[^\p{L}\p{N}]*$
Options: Case sensitive; Exact spacing; Dot doesn't match line breaks; ^$ match at line breaks; Parentheses capture
Match this alternative «^[^\p{L}\p{N}]*»
Assert position at the beginning of a line «^»
Match any single character NOT present in the list below «[^\p{L}\p{N}]*»
Between zero and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy) «*»
A character from the Unicode category “letter” «\p{L}»
A character from the Unicode category “number” «\p{N}»
Or match this alternative «[^\p{L}\p{N}]*$»
Match any single character NOT present in the list below «[^\p{L}\p{N}]*»
Between zero and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy) «*»
A character from the Unicode category “letter” «\p{L}»
A character from the Unicode category “number” «\p{N}»
Assert position at the end of a line «$»
Created with RegexBuddy
Without using regex:
In Java, you could do: (in c# syntax would be nearly the same with same functionality)
while (true) {
if (word.length() == 0) {
return ""; // bad
}
if (!Character.isLetter(word.charAt(0))) {
word = word.substring(1);
continue; // so we are doing front first
}
if (!Character.isLetter(word.charAt(word.length()-1))) {
word = word.substring(0, word.length()-1);
continue; // then we are doing end
}
break; // if front is done, and end is done
}
you could use this pattern
^[^[:alnum:]]+|[^[:alnum:]]+$
with g option
Demo
I am trying to replace a bunch of strings in files. The strings are stored in a datatable along with the new string value.
string contents = File.ReadAllText(file);
foreach (DataRow dr in FolderRenames.Rows)
{
contents = Regex.Replace(contents, dr["find"].ToString(), dr["replace"].ToString());
File.SetAttributes(file, FileAttributes.Normal);
File.WriteAllText(file, contents);
}
The strings look like this _-uUa, -_uU, _-Ha etc.
The problem that I am having is when for example this string "_uU" will also overwrite "_-uUa" so the replacement would look like "newvaluea"
Is there a way to tell regex to look at the next character after the found string and make sure it is not an alphanumeric character?
I hope it is clear what I am trying to do here.
Here is some sample data:
private function _-0iX(arg1:flash.events.Event):void
{
if (arg1.type == flash.events.Event.RESIZE)
{
if (this._-2GU)
{
this._-yu(this._-2GU);
}
}
return;
}
The next characters could be ;, (, ), dot, comma, space, :, etc.
First of all, you should use Regex.Escape.
You can use then
contents = Regex.Replace(
contents,
Regex.Escape(dr["find"].ToString()) + #"(?![a-zA-Z])",
Regex.Escape(dr["replace"].ToString()));
or even better
contents = Regex.Replace(
contents,
#"\b" + Regex.Escape(dr["find"].ToString()) + #"\b",
Regex.Escape(dr["replace"].ToString()));
I think this is what you're looking for:
contents = Regex.Replace(
contents,
string.Format(#"(?<!\w){0}(?!\w)", Regex.Escape(dr["find"].ToString())),
dr["replace"].ToString().Replace("$", "$$")
);
You can't use \b because your search strings don't always start and end with word characters. Instead, I used (?<!\w) and (?!\w) to make sure the matched substring is not immediately preceded or followed by a word character (i.e., a letter, a digit, or an underscore). I don't know the complete specs for your search strings, so this pattern might need some tweaking.
None of the sample patterns you provided contain regex metacharacters, but like the other responders, I used Regex.Escape() to render it safe anyway. In the replacement string the only character you have to watch out for is the dollar sign (ref), and the way to escape that is with another dollar sign. Notice that I used String.Replace() for that instead of Regex.Replace().
There are two tricks that can help you here:
Order all the search string by length, and replace the longest ones first, that way you won't accidentally replace the shorter ones.
Use a MatchEvaluator and instead of looping through all your rows, search fro all replacement patterns in the string and look them up in your dataset.
Option one is simple, option two would look like this:
Regex.Replace(contents", "_-\\w+", ReplaceIdentifier)
public string ReplaceIdentifier(Match m)
{
DataRow row = FolderRenames.Rows.FindRow("find"); // Requires a primary key on "find"
if (row != null) return row["replace"];
else return m.Value;
}
How to match all first digits before # in this line
26909578#Sbrntrl_7x06-lilla.avi#356028416#2012-10-24 09:06#0#http://bitshare.com/files/dvk9o1oz/Sbrntrl_7x06-lilla.avi.html#[URL=http://bitshare.com/files/dvk9o1oz/Sbrntrl_7x06-lilla.avi.html]http://bitshare.com/files/dvk9o1oz/Sbrntrl_7x06-lilla.avi.html[/URL]#http://bitshare.com/files/dvk9o1oz/Sbrntrl_7x06-lilla.avi.html#http://bitshare.com/?f=dvk9o1oz#http://bitshare.com/delete/dvk9o1oz/4511e6f3612961f961a761adcb7e40a0/Sbrntrl_7x06-lilla.avi.html
Im trying to get this number 26909578
My try
string text = #"26909578#Sbrntrl_7x06-lilla.avi#356028416#2012-10-24 09:06#0#http://bitshare.com/files/dvk9o1oz/Sbrntrl_7x06-lilla.avi.html#[URL=http://bitshare.com/files/dvk9o1oz/Sbrntrl_7x06-lilla.avi.html]http://bitshare.com/files/dvk9o1oz/Sbrntrl_7x06-lilla.avi.html[/URL]#http://bitshare.com/files/dvk9o1oz/Sbrntrl_7x06-lilla.avi.html#http://bitshare.com/?f=dvk9o1oz#http://bitshare.com/delete/dvk9o1oz/4511e6f3612961f961a761adcb7e40a0/Sbrntrl_7x06-lilla.avi.html";
MatchCollection m1 = Regex.Matches(text, #"(.+?)#", RegexOptions.Singleline);
but then its outputs all text
Make it explicit that it has to start at the beginning of the string:
#"^(.+?)#"
Alternatively, if you know that this will always be a number, restrict the possible characters to digits:
#"^\d+"
Alternatively use the function Match instead of Matches. Matches explicitly says, "give me all the matches", while Match will only return the first one.
Or, in a trivial case like this, you might also consider a non-RegEx approach. The IndexOf() method will locate the '#' and you could easily strip off what came before.
I even wrote a sscanf() replacement for C#, which you can see in my article A sscanf() Replacement for .NET.
If you dont want to/dont like to use regex, use a string builder and just loop until you hit the #.
so like this
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
string yourdata = "yourdata";
int i = 0;
while(yourdata[i]!='#')
{
sb.Append(yourdata[i]);
i++;
}
//when you get to that # your stringbuilder will have the number you want in it so return it with .toString();
string answer = sb.toString();
The entire string (except the final url) is composed of segments that can be matched by (.+?)#, so you will get several matches. Retrieve only the first match from the collection returned by matching .+?(?=#)
I am trying to validate a string based on the inputed characters. I want to be able to set which characters are allowed besides characters and numbers. Below is my extension method:
public static bool isAlphaNumeric(this string inputString, string allowedChars)
{
StringBuilder str = new StringBuilder(allowedChars);
str.Replace(" ", "\\s");
str.Replace("\n","\\\\");
str.Replace("/n", "////");
allowedChars = str.ToString();
Regex rg = new Regex(#"^[a-zA-Z0-9" + allowedChars + "]*$");
return rg.IsMatch(inputString);
}
The way I use this is:
s string = " te\m#as 1963' yili.ışçöÖÇÜ/nda olbnrdu" // just a test string with no meaning
if (s.isAlphaNumeric("ışŞö\Ö#üÜçÇ ğ'Ğ/.")) {...}
Of course it gives an error:
parsing "^[a-zA-Z0-9ışŞö\Ö#üÜçÇ\sğ'Ğ/.]*$" - Unrecognized escape sequence
the stringbuilder replace function is wrong which I am aware of. I want to be able to accept all characters given in the allowedChars parameter. This can also include slashes (any other characters similar to slashes I am not aware of?) Given this, how can I get my replace function work? and also is the way I am doing is correct? I am very very new to regular expressions and have no clue on how to work with them...
You need to use Regex.Escape on your string.
allowedChars = Regex.Escape(str.ToString());
ought to do it.
You're looking for Regex.Escape.