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Regex to find special pattern

I have a string to parse. First I have to check if string contains special pattern:
I wanted to know if there is substrings which starts with "$(",
and end with ")",
and between those start and end special strings,there should not be
any white-empty space,
it should not include "$" character inside it.
I have a little regex for it in C#
string input = "$(abc)";
string pattern = #"\$\(([^$][^\s]*)\)";
Regex rgx = new Regex(pattern, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
MatchCollection matches = rgx.Matches(input);
foreach (var match in matches)
{
Console.WriteLine("value = " + match);
}
It works for many cases but failed at input= $(a$() , which inside the expression is empty. I wanted NOT to match when input is $().[ there is nothing between start and end identifiers].
What is wrong with my regex?

Note: [^$] matches a single character but not of $
Use the below regex if you want to match $()
\$\(([^\s$]*)\)
Use the below regex if you don't want to match $(),
\$\(([^\s$]+)\)
* repeats the preceding token zero or more times.
+ Repeats the preceding token one or more times.
Your regex \(([^$][^\s]*)\) is wrong. It won't allow $ as a first character inside () but it allows it as second or third ,, etc. See the demo here. You need to combine the negated classes in your regex inorder to match any character not of a space or $.

Your current regex does not match $() because the [^$] matches at least 1 character. The only way I can think of where you would have this match would be when you have an input containing more than one parens, like:
$()(something)
In those cases, you will also need to exclude at least the closing paren:
string pattern = #"\$\(([^$\s)]+)\)";
The above matches for example:
abc in $(abc) and
abc and def in $(def)$()$(abc)(something).

Simply replace the * with a + and merge the options.
string pattern = #"\$\(([^$\s]+)\)";
+ means 1 or more
* means 0 or more

Regular expression to remove whitespace around a comma, except when quoted

I have a CSV file that has rows resembling this:
1, 4, 2, "PUBLIC, JOHN Q" ,ACTIVE , 1332
I am looking for a regular expression replacement that will match against these rows and spit out something resembling this:
1,4,2,"PUBLIC, JOHN Q",ACTIVE,1332
I thought this would be rather easy: I made the expression ([ \t]+,) and replaced it with ,. I made a complement expression (,[ \t]+) with a replacement of , and I thought I had achieved a good means of right-trimming and left-trimming strings.
...but then I noticed that my "PUBLIC, JOHN Q" was now "PUBLIC,JOHN Q" which isn't what I wanted. (Note the space following the comma is now gone).
What would be the appropriate expression to trim the white space before and after a comma, but leave quoted text untouched?
UPDATE
To clarify, I am using an application to handle the file. This application allows me to define multiple regular expression replacements; it does not provide a parsing capability. While this may not be the ideal mechanism for this, it would sure beat making another application for this one file.

If the engine used by your tool is the C# regular expression engine, then you can try the following expression:
(?<!,\s*"(?:[^\\"]|\\")*)\s+(?!(?:[^\\"]|\\")*"\s*,)
replace with empty string.
The guys answers assumed the quotes are balanced and used counting to determine if the space is part of a quoted value or not.
My expression looks for all spaces that are not part of a quoted value.
RegexHero Demo

Something like this might do the job:
(?<!(^[^"]*"[^"]*(("[^"]*){2})*))[\t ]*,[ \t]*
Which matches [\t ]*,[ \t]*, only when not preceded by an odd number of quotes.

Going with some CSV library or parsing the file yourself would be much more easier, and IMO should be preferable option here.
But if you really insist on a regex, you can use this one:
"\s+(?=([^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*[^\"]*$)"
And replace it with empty string - ""
This regex matches one or more whitespaces, followed by an even number of quotes. This will of course work only if you have balanced quote.
(?x) # Ignore Whitespace
\s+ # One or more whitespace characters
(?= # Followed by
( # A group - This group captures even number of quotes
[^\"]* # Zero or more non-quote characters
\" # A quote
[^\"]* # Zero or more non-quote characters
\" # A quote
)* # Zero or more repetition of previous group
[^\"]* # Zero or more non-quote characters
$ # Till the end
) # Look-ahead end

string format(string val)
{
if (val.StartsWith("\"")) val = " " + val;
string[] vals = val.Split('\"');
for (int i = 0; i < vals.Length; i += 2) vals[i] = vals[i].Replace(" ", "").Replace("\t", "");
return string.Join("\t", vals);
}
This will work if you have properly closed quoted strings in between

Forget the regex (See Bart's comment on the question, regular expressions aren't suitable for CSV).
public static string ReduceSpaces( string input )
{
char[] a = input.ToCharArray();
int placeComma = 0, placeOther = 0;
bool inQuotes = false;
bool followedComma = true;
foreach( char c in a ) {
inQuotes ^= (c == '\"');
if (c == ' ') {
if (!followedComma)
a[placeOther++] = c;
}
else if (c == ',') {
a[placeComma++] = c;
placeOther = placeComma;
followedComma = true;
}
else {
a[placeOther++] = c;
placeComma = placeOther;
followedComma = false;
}
}
return new String(a, 0, placeComma);
}
Demo: http://ideone.com/NEKm09

Simple regex question C#

I need to match the string that is shown in the window displayed below :
8% of setup_av_free.exe from software-files-l.cnet.com Completed
98% of test.zip from 65.55.72.119 Completed
[numeric]%of[filename]from[hostname | IP address]Completed
I have written the regex pattern halfway
if (Regex.IsMatch(text, #"[\d]+%[\s]of[\s](.+?)(\.[^.]*)[\s]from[\s]"))
MessageBox.Show(text);
and I now need to integrate the following regex into my code above
ValidIpAddressRegex = "^(([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])\.){3}([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])$";
ValidHostnameRegex = "^(([a-zA-Z]|[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9\-]*[a-zA-Z0-9])\.)*([A-Za-z]|[A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9\-]*[A-Za-z0-9])$";
The 2 regex were taken from this link. These 2 regex works well when i use the Regex.ismatch to match "123.123.123.123" and "software-files-l.cnet.com" . However i cannot get it to work when i intergrate both of them to my existin regex code. I tried several variant but not able to get it to work. Can someone guide me to integrate the 2 regex to my existing code. Thanks in advance.

You can certainly combine all these regular expressions into one, but I'd recommend against it. Consider this method, first it checks wether your input text has the correct form overall, then it checks if the "from" part is an IP address or a hostname.
bool CheckString(string text) {
const string ValidIpAddressRegex = #"^(([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])\.){3}([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])$";
const string ValidHostnameRegex = #"^(([a-zA-Z]|[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9\-]*[a-zA-Z0-9])\.)*([A-Za-z]|[A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9\-]*[A-Za-z0-9])$";
var match = Regex.Match(text, #"[\d]+%[\s]of[\s](.+?)(\.[^.]*)[\s]from[\s](\S+)");
if(!match.Success)
return false;
string address = match.Groups[3].Value;
return Regex.IsMatch(address, ValidIpAddressRegex) ||
Regex.IsMatch(address, ValidHostnameRegex);
}
It does what you want and is much more readable and than single monster-sized regular expression. If you aren't going to call this method millions of time in a loop there is no reason to be concerned about it being less performant that single regex.
Also, in case you aren't aware of that the brackets around \d or \s aren't necessary.

The "Problem" that those two regexes do not match your string is that they start with ^ and end with $
^ means match the start of the string (or row if the m modifier is activated)
$ means match the end of the string (or row if the m modifier is activated)
When you try it this is true but in your real text they are in the middle of the string, so it is not matched.
Try just remove the ^ at the very beginning and the $ at the very end.

Here you go.
^[\d]+%[\s+]of[\s+](.+?)(\.[^.]*)[\s+]from[\s+]((([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])\.){3}([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])|((([a-zA-Z]|[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9\-]*[a-zA-Z0-9])\.)*([A-Za-z]|[A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9\-]*[A-Za-z0-9])))[\s+]Completed
Remove the ^ and $ characters from the ValidIpAddressRegex and ValidHostnameRegex samples above, and add them separated by the or character (|) enclosed by parentheses.

You could use this, its should work for all cases. I mightve accidentally deleted a character while formatting so let me know if it doesnt work.
string captureString = "8% of setup_av_free.exe from software-files-l.cnet.com Completed";
Regex reg = new Regex(#"(?<perc>\d+)% of (?<file>\w+\.\w+) from (?<host>" +
#"(\d+\.\d+.\d+.\d+)|(((https?|ftp|gopher|telnet|file|notes|ms-help):" +
#"((//)|(\\\\))+)?[\w\d:##%/;$()~_?\+-=\\\.&]*)) Completed");
Match m = reg.Match(captureString);
string perc = m.Groups["perc"].Value;
string file = m.Groups["file"].Value;
string host = m.Groups["host"].Value;

Remove characters using Regex

I have a string. I need to replace all instances of a given array of strings from this original string - how would I do that?
Currently I am using...
var inputString = "this is my original string.";
var replacement = "";
var pattern = string.Join("|", arrayOfStringsToRemove);
Regex.Replace(inputString, pattern, replacement);
This works fine, but unfortunately it breaks down when someone tries to remove a character that has a special meaning in the regex.
How should I do this? Is there a better way?

Build the pattern using Regex.Escape:
StringBuilder pattern = new StringBuilder();
foreach (string s in arrayOfStringsToRemove)
{
pattern.Append("(");
pattern.Append(Regex.Escape(s));
pattern.Append(")|");
}
Regex.Replace(inputString, pattern.ToString(0, pattern.Length - 1), // remove trailing |
replacement);

Look at Regex.Escape

You need to escape special characters with a backslash
\
Sometimes you may need to use two backslashes
\\

You need to escape characters with spacial meaning of course.
var str_to_replace = "removing \[this\]\(link\)";

Regex to match alphanumeric and spaces

What am I doing wrong here?
string q = "john s!";
string clean = Regex.Replace(q, #"([^a-zA-Z0-9]|^\s)", string.Empty);
// clean == "johns". I want "john s";

just a FYI
string clean = Regex.Replace(q, #"[^a-zA-Z0-9\s]", string.Empty);
would actually be better like
string clean = Regex.Replace(q, #"[^\w\s]", string.Empty);

This:
string clean = Regex.Replace(dirty, "[^a-zA-Z0-9\x20]", String.Empty);
\x20 is ascii hex for 'space' character
you can add more individual characters that you want to be allowed.
If you want for example "?" to be ok in the return string add \x3f.

I got it:
string clean = Regex.Replace(q, #"[^a-zA-Z0-9\s]", string.Empty);
Didn't know you could put \s in the brackets

The following regex is for space inclusion in textbox.
Regex r = new Regex("^[a-zA-Z\\s]+");
r.IsMatch(textbox1.text);
This works fine for me.

I suspect ^ doesn't work the way you think it does outside of a character class.
What you're telling it to do is replace everything that isn't an alphanumeric with an empty string, OR any leading space. I think what you mean to say is that spaces are ok to not replace - try moving the \s into the [] class.

There appear to be two problems.
You're using the ^ outside a [] which matches the start of the line
You're not using a * or + which means you will only match a single character.
I think you want the following regex #"([^a-zA-Z0-9\s])+"

bottom regex with space, supports all keyboard letters from different culture
string input = "78-selim güzel667.,?";
Regex regex = new Regex(#"[^\w\x20]|[\d]");
var result= regex.Replace(input,"");
//selim güzel

The circumflex inside the square brackets means all characters except the subsequent range. You want a circumflex outside of square brackets.

This regex will help you to filter if there is at least one alphanumeric character and zero or more special characters i.e. _ (underscore), \s whitespace, -(hyphen)
string comparer = "string you want to compare";
Regex r = new Regex(#"^([a-zA-Z0-9]+[_\s-]*)+$");
if (!r.IsMatch(comparer))
{
return false;
}
return true;
Create a set using [a-zA-Z0-9]+ for alphanumeric characters, "+" sign (a quantifier) at the end of the set will make sure that there will be at least one alphanumeric character within the comparer.
Create another set [_\s-]* for special characters, "*" quantifier is to validate that there can be special characters within comparer string.
Pack these sets into a capture group ([a-zA-Z0-9]+[_\s-]*)+ to say that the comparer string should occupy these features.

[RegularExpression(#"^[A-Z]+[a-zA-Z""'\s-]*$")]
Above syntax also accepts space