regex syntax stop search - c#

How do I make Regex stop the search after "Target This"?
HeaderText="Target This" AnotherAttribute="Getting Picked Up"
This is what i've tried
var match = Regex.Match(string1, #"(?<=HeaderText=\").*(?=\")");

The quantifier * is eager, which means it will consume as many characters as it can while still getting a match. You want the lazy quantifier, *?.
As an aside, rather than using look-around expressions as you have done here, you may find it in general easier to use capturing groups:
var match = Regex.Match(string1, "HeaderText=\"(.*?)\"");
^ ^ these make a capturing group
Now the match matches the whole thing, but match.Groups[1] is just the value in the quotes.

Plain regex pattern
(?<=HeaderText=").*?(?=")
or as string
string pattern = "(?<=HeaderText=\").*?(?=\")";
or using a verbatim string
string pattern = #"(?<=HeaderText="").*?(?="")";
The trick is the question mark after .*. It means "as few as possible", making it stop after the first end-quotes it encounters.
Note that verbatim strings (introduced with #) do not recognize the backslash \ as escape character. Escape the double quotes by doubling them.
Note for others interested in regex: The search pattern used finds a postion between a prefix and a suffix:
(?<=prefix)find(?=suffix)

Try this:
var match = Regex.Match(string1, "HeaderText=\"([^\"]+)");
var val = match.Groups[1].Value; //Target This
UPDATE
if there possibilities have double quotes in target,change the regex to:
HeaderText=\"(.+?)\"\\s+\\w
Note: it's not right way to do this, if it's a XML, check out System.XML otherwise,HtmlAgilityPack / How to use HTML Agility pack.

Related

RegEx expression works on regex101 but not in C# [duplicate]

https://regex101.com/r/sB9wW6/1
(?:(?<=\s)|^)#(\S+) <-- the problem in positive lookbehind
Working like this on prod: (?:\s|^)#(\S+), but I need a correct start index (without space).
Here is in JS:
var regex = new RegExp(/(?:(?<=\s)|^)#(\S+)/g);
Error parsing regular expression: Invalid regular expression:
/(?:(?<=\s)|^)#(\S+)/
What am I doing wrong?
UPDATE
Ok, no lookbehind in JS :(
But anyways, I need a regex to get the proper start and end index of my match. Without leading space.
Make sure you always select the right regex engine at regex101.com. See an issue that occurred due to using a JS-only compatible regex with [^] construct in Python.
JS regex - at the time of answering this question - did not support lookbehinds. Now, it becomes more and more adopted after its introduction in ECMAScript 2018. You do not really need it here since you can use capturing groups:
var re = /(?:\s|^)#(\S+)/g;
var str = 's #vln1\n#vln2\n';
var res = [];
while ((m = re.exec(str)) !== null) {
res.push(m[1]);
}
console.log(res);
The (?:\s|^)#(\S+) matches a whitespace or the start of string with (?:\s|^), then matches #, and then matches and captures into Group 1 one or more non-whitespace chars with (\S+).
To get the start/end indices, use
var re = /(\s|^)#\S+/g;
var str = 's #vln1\n#vln2\n';
var pos = [];
while ((m = re.exec(str)) !== null) {
pos.push([m.index+m[1].length, m.index+m[0].length]);
}
console.log(pos);
BONUS
My regex works at regex101.com, but not in...
First of all, have you checked the Code Generator link in the Tools pane on the left?
All languages - "Literal string" vs. "String literal" alert - Make sure you test against the same text used in code, literal string, at the regex tester. A common scenario is copy/pasting a string literal value directly into the test string field, with all string escape sequences like \n (line feed char), \r (carriage return), \t (tab char). See Regex_search c++, for example. Mind that they must be replaced with their literal counterparts. So, if you have in Python text = "Text\n\n abc", you must use Text, two line breaks, abc in the regex tester text field. Text.*?abc will never match it although you might think it "works". Yes, . does not always match line break chars, see How do I match any character across multiple lines in a regular expression?
All languages - Backslash alert - Make sure you correctly use a backslash in your string literal, in most languages, in regular string literals, use double backslash, i.e. \d used at regex101.com must written as \\d. In raw string literals, use a single backslash, same as at regex101. Escaping word boundary is very important, since, in many languages (C#, Python, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, etc.), "\b" is used to define a BACKSPACE char, i.e. it is a valid string escape sequence. PHP does not support \b string escape sequence, so "/\b/" = '/\b/' there.
All languages - Default flags - Global and Multiline - Note that by default m and g flags are enabled at regex101.com. So, if you use ^ and $, they will match at the start and end of lines correspondingly. If you need the same behavior in your code check how multiline mode is implemented and either use a specific flag, or - if supported - use an inline (?m) embedded (inline) modifier. The g flag enables multiple occurrence matching, it is often implemented using specific functions/methods. Check your language reference to find the appropriate one.
line-breaks - Line endings at regex101.com are LF only, you can't test strings with CRLF endings, see regex101.com VS myserver - different results. Solutions can be different for each regex library: either use \R (PCRE, Java, Ruby) or some kind of \v (Boost, PCRE), \r?\n, (?:\r\n?|\n)/(?>\r\n?|\n) (good for .NET) or [\r\n]+ in other libraries (see answers for C#, PHP). Another issue related to the fact that you test your regex against a multiline string (not a list of standalone strings/lines) is that your patterns may consume the end of line, \n, char with negated character classes, see an issue like that. \D matched the end of line char, and in order to avoid it, [^\d\n] could be used, or other alternatives.
php - You are dealing with Unicode strings, or want shorthand character classes to match Unicode characters, too (e.g. \w+ to match Стрибижев or Stribiżew, or \s+ to match hard spaces), then you need to use u modifier, see preg_match() returns 0 although regex testers work - To match all occurrences, use preg_match_all, not preg_match with /...pattern.../g, see PHP preg_match to find multiple occurrences and "Unknown modifier 'g' in..." when using preg_match in PHP?- Your regex with inline backreference like \1 refuses to work? Are you using a double quoted string literal? Use a single-quoted one, see Backreference does not work in PHP
phplaravel - Mind you need the regex delimiters around the pattern, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22430529
python - Note that re.search, re.match, re.fullmatch, re.findall and re.finditer accept the regex as the first argument, and the input string as the second argument. Not re.findall("test 200 300", r"\d+"), but re.findall(r"\d+", "test 200 300"). If you test at regex101.com, please check the "Code Generator" page. - You used re.match that only searches for a match at the start of the string, use re.search: Regex works fine on Pythex, but not in Python - If the regex contains capturing group(s), re.findall returns a list of captures/capture tuples. Either use non-capturing groups, or re.finditer, or remove redundant capturing groups, see re.findall behaves weird - If you used ^ in the pattern to denote start of a line, not start of the whole string, or used $ to denote the end of a line and not a string, pass re.M or re.MULTILINE flag to re method, see Using ^ to match beginning of line in Python regex
- If you try to match some text across multiple lines, and use re.DOTALL or re.S, or [\s\S]* / [\s\S]*?, and still nothing works, check if you read the file line by line, say, with for line in file:. You must pass the whole file contents as the input to the regex method, see Getting Everything Between Two Characters Across New Lines. - Having trouble adding flags to regex and trying something like pattern = r"/abc/gi"? See How to add modifers to regex in python?
c#, .net - .NET regex does not support possessive quantifiers like ++, *+, ??, {1,10}?, see .NET regex matching digits between optional text with possessive quantifer is not working - When you match against a multiline string and use RegexOptions.Multiline option (or inline (?m) modifier) with an $ anchor in the pattern to match entire lines, and get no match in code, you need to add \r? before $, see .Net regex matching $ with the end of the string and not of line, even with multiline enabled - To get multiple matches, use Regex.Matches, not Regex.Match, see RegEx Match multiple times in string - Similar case as above: splitting a string into paragraphs, by a double line break sequence - C# / Regex Pattern works in online testing, but not at runtime - You should remove regex delimiters, i.e. #"/\d+/" must actually look like #"\d+", see Simple and tested online regex containing regex delimiters does not work in C# code - If you unnecessarily used Regex.Escape to escape all characters in a regular expression (like Regex.Escape(#"\d+\.\d+")) you need to remove Regex.Escape, see Regular Expression working in regex tester, but not in c#
dartflutter - Use raw string literal, RegExp(r"\d"), or double backslashes (RegExp("\\d")) - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59085824
javascript - Double escape backslashes in a RegExp("\\d"): Why do regex constructors need to be double escaped?
- (Negative) lookbehinds unsupported by most browsers: Regex works on browser but not in Node.js - Strings are immutable, assign the .replace result to a var - The .replace() method does change the string in place - Retrieve all matches with str.match(/pat/g) - Regex101 and Js regex search showing different results or, with RegExp#exec, RegEx to extract all matches from string using RegExp.exec- Replace all pattern matches in string: Why does javascript replace only first instance when using replace?
javascriptangular - Double the backslashes if you define a regex with a string literal, or just use a regex literal notation, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56097782
java - Word boundary not working? Make sure you use double backslashes, "\\b", see Regex \b word boundary not works - Getting invalid escape sequence exception? Same thing, double backslashes - Java doesn't work with regex \s, says: invalid escape sequence - No match found is bugging you? Run Matcher.find() / Matcher.matches() - Why does my regex work on RegexPlanet and regex101 but not in my code? - .matches() requires a full string match, use .find(): Java Regex pattern that matches in any online tester but doesn't in Eclipse - Access groups using matcher.group(x): Regex not working in Java while working otherwise - Inside a character class, both [ and ] must be escaped - Using square brackets inside character class in Java regex - You should not run matcher.matches() and matcher.find() consecutively, use only if (matcher.matches()) {...} to check if the pattern matches the whole string and then act accordingly, or use if (matcher.find()) to check if there is a single match or while (matcher.find()) to find multiple matches (or Matcher#results()). See Why does my regex work on RegexPlanet and regex101 but not in my code?
scala - Your regex attempts to match several lines, but you read the file line by line (e.g. use for (line <- fSource.getLines))? Read it into a single variable (see matching new line in Scala regex, when reading from file)
kotlin - You have Regex("/^\\d+$/")? Remove the outer slashes, they are regex delimiter chars that are not part of a pattern. See Find one or more word in string using Regex in Kotlin - You expect a partial string match, but .matchEntire requires a full string match? Use .find, see Regex doesn't match in Kotlin
mongodb - Do not enclose /.../ with single/double quotation marks, see mongodb regex doesn't work
c++ - regex_match requires a full string match, use regex_search to find a partial match - Regex not working as expected with C++ regex_match - regex_search finds the first match only. Use sregex_token_iterator or sregex_iterator to get all matches: see What does std::match_results::size return? - When you read a user-defined string using std::string input; std::cin >> input;, note that cin will only get to the first whitespace, to read the whole line properly, use std::getline(std::cin, input); - C++ Regex to match '+' quantifier - "\d" does not work, you need to use "\\d" or R"(\d)" (a raw string literal) - This regex doesn't work in c++ - Make sure the regex is tested against a literal text, not a string literal, see Regex_search c++
go - Double backslashes or use a raw string literal: Regular expression doesn't work in Go - Go regex does not support lookarounds, select the right option (Go) at regex101.com before testing! Regex expression negated set not working golang
groovy - Return all matches: Regex that works on regex101 does not work in Groovy
r - Double escape backslashes in the string literal: "'\w' is an unrecognized escape" in grep - Use perl=TRUE to PCRE engine ((g)sub/(g)regexpr): Why is this regex using lookbehinds invalid in R?
oracle - Greediness of all quantifiers is set by the first quantifier in the regex, see Regex101 vs Oracle Regex (then, you need to make all the quantifiers as greedy as the first one)] - \b does not work? Oracle regex does not support word boundaries at all, use workarounds as shown in Regex matching works on regex tester but not in oracle
firebase - Double escape backslashes, make sure ^ only appears at the start of the pattern and $ is located only at the end (if any), and note you cannot use more than 9 inline backreferences: Firebase Rules Regex Birthday
firebasegoogle-cloud-firestore - In Firestore security rules, the regular expression needs to be passed as a string, which also means it shouldn't be wrapped in / symbols, i.e. use allow create: if docId.matches("^\\d+$").... See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63243300
google-data-studio - /pattern/g in REGEXP_REPLACE must contain no / regex delimiters and flags (like g) - see How to use Regex to replace square brackets from date field in Google Data Studio?
google-sheets - If you think REGEXEXTRACT does not return full matches, truncates the results, you should check if you have redundant capturing groups in your regex and remove them, or convert the capturing groups to non-capturing by add ?: after the opening (, see Extract url domain root in Google Sheet
sed - Why does my regular expression work in X but not in Y?
word-boundarypcrephp - [[:<:]] and [[:>:]] do not work in the regex tester, although they are valid constructs in PCRE, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48670105
snowflake-cloud-data-platform snowflake-sql - If you are writing a stored procedure, and \\d does not work, you need to double them again and use \\\\d, see REGEX conversion of VARCHAR value to DATE in Snowflake stored procedure using RLIKE not consistent.

How to use regex to match anything from A to B, where B is not preceeded by C

I'm having a hard time with this one. First off, here is the difficult part of the string I'm matching against:
"a \"b\" c"
What I want to extract from this is the following:
a \"b\" c
Of course, this is just a substring from a larger string, but everything else works as expected. The problem is making the regex ignore the quotes that are escaped with a backslash.
I've looked into various ways of doing it, but nothing has gotten me the correct results. My most recent attempt looks like this:
"((\"|[^"])+?)"
In various test online, this works the way it should - but when I build my ASP.NET page, it cuts off at the first ", leaving me with just the a-letter, white space and a backslash.
The logic behind the pattern above is to capture all instances of \" or something that is not ". I was hoping this would search for \", making sure to find those first - but I got the feeling that this is overridden by the second part of the expression, which is only 1 single character. A single backslash does not match 2 characters (\"), but it will match as a non-". And from there, the next character will be a single ", and the matching is completed. (This is just my hypothesis on why my pattern is failing.)
Any pointers on this one? I have tried various combinations with "look"-methods in regex, but I didn't really get anywhere. I also get the feeling that is what I need.
ORIGINAL ANSWER
To match a string like a \"b\" c, you need to use following regex declaration:
(?:\\"|[^"])+
var rx = Regex(#"(?:\\""|[^""])+");
See RegexStorm demo
Here is an IDEONE demo:
var str = "a \\\"b\\\" c";
Console.WriteLine(str);
var rx = new Regex(#"(?:\\""|[^""])+");
Console.WriteLine(rx.Match(str).Value);
Please note the # in front of the string literal that lets us use verbatim string literals where we have to double quotes to match literal quotes and use single escape slashes instead of double. This makes regexps easier to read and maintain.
If you want to match any escaped entities in your input string, you can use:
var rx = new Regex(#"[^""\\]*(?:\\.[^""\\]*)*");
See demo on RegexStorm
UPDATE
To match the quoted strings, just add quotes around the pattern:
var rx = new Regex(#"""(?<res>[^""\\]*(?:\\.[^""\\]*)*)""");
This pattern yields much better performance than Tim Long's suggested regex, see RegexHero test resuls:
The following expression worked for me:
"(?<Result>(\\"|.)*)"
The expression matches as follows:
An opening quote (literal ")
A named capture (?<name>pattern) consisting of:
Zero or more occurences * of literal \" or (|) any single character (.)
A final closing quote (literal ")
Note that the * (zero or more) quantifier is non-greedy so the final quote is matched by the literal " and not the "any single character" . part.
I used ReSharper 9's built-in Regular Expression validator to develop the expression and verify the results:
I have used the "Explicit Capture" option to reduce cruft in the output (RegexOptions.ExplicitCapture).
One thing to note is that I am matching the whole string, but I am only capturing the substring, using a named capture. Using named captures is a really useful way to get at the results you want. In code, it might look something like this:
static string MatchQuotedString(string input)
{
const string pattern = #"""(?<Result>(\\""|.)*)""";
const RegexOptions options = RegexOptions.ExplicitCapture;
Regex regex = new Regex(pattern, options);
var matches = regex.Match(input);
var substring = matches.Groups["Result"].Value;
return substring;
}
Optimization: If you are planning on using the regex a lot, you could factor it out into a field and use the RegexOptions.Compiled option, this pre-compiles the expression and gives you faster throughput at the expense of longer initialization.

Regex pattern with dot and quotation mark

How can I declare regex pattern in c#. Pattern starts with quotation mark and later is url address, some thing like below
\"www\.mypage\.pl //<- this is my pattern
string pattern = ? //todo: what should I put there
using verbatim strings:
string pattern = #"""www\.mypage\.pl";
You can use \ backslash to escape the regex semantic and revert to the actual literal. If you want to escape
"www.mypage.pl
you can use
\"[0-9a-zA-Z]*\.[0-9a-zA-Z]*\.[0-9a-zA-Z]*
^ this is not to escape the regex but the eventual string
if you use single quotes you don't need to escape the quotes!
Note that [0-9a-zA-Z]* will require some more characters like % and - and _ to capture all cases according to an RFC about URL syntax I can't produce now (it's easy to find online).
If you want to escape
\"www\.mypage\.pl
you have to escape the escapes as well:
\\\"[0-9a-zA-Z]*\\\.[0-9a-zA-Z]*\\\.[0-9a-zA-Z]*
Other answers have already handled (very nicely) how to put the phrase itself into a string.
To use it, you need to refer to the System.Text.RegularExpressions namespace, documentation for which is over at MSDN. As a (very) quick example:
System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(content,
regexPattern, newMatchContent);
will replace matches for the regular expression regexPattern in content with newMatchContent, and return the result.

Regex.Replace not working

I am having a strange issue with Regex.Replace
string test = "if the other party is in material breach of such contract and, after <span style=\"background-color:#ffff00;\">forty-five (45)</span> calendar days notice of such breach";
string final = Regex.Replace(test, "forty-five (45)", "forty-five (46)", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
the "final" string still shows "forty-five (45)". Any idea why? I am assuming it has to do something with the tag. How do I fix this?
Thanks
Escape the parenthesis. Depending on the language, might require two back slashes.
string final = Regex.Replace(test, "forty-five \(45\)", "forty-five (46)", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
Basically, parenthesis are defined to mean something, and by escaping the characters, you are telling regex to use the parenthesis character, and not the meaning.
Better yet, why are you using a Regex to do this at all? Try just doing a normal string replacement.
string final = test.Replace("forty-five (45)", "forty-six (46)")
Parentheses are special in regular expressions. They delimit a group, to allow for things such as alternation. For example, the regular expression foo(bar|bat)baz matches:
foo, followed by
either bar OR bat, followed by
baz
So, a regular expression like foo(bar) will never match the literal string foo(bar). What it will match is the literal string foobar. Consequently, you need to escape the metacharacters. In C#, this should do you:
string final = Regex.Replace(test, #"forty-five \(45\)", "forty-five (46)", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
The #-quoted string helps avoid headaches from excessive backslashes. Without it, you'd have to write "forty-five \(45\)".
If you are unable to escape the parenthesis, put them in a character class:
forty-five [(]45[)]

Regex for string enclosed in <*>, C#

I am trying to get all strings enclosed in <*> by using following Regex:
Regex regex = new Regex(#"\<(?<name>\S+)\>", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
string name = e.Match.Groups["name"].Value;
But in some cases where I have text like :
<Vendors><Vtitle/> <VSurname/></Vendors>
It's returning two strings instead of four, i.e. above Regex outputs
<Vendors><Vtitle/> //as one string and
<VSurname/></Vendors> //as second string
Where as I am expecting four strings:
<Vendors>
<Vtitle/>
<VSurname/>
</Vendors>
Could you please guide me what change I need to make to my Regex.
I tried adding '\b' to specify word boundry
new Regex(#"\b\<(?<name>\S+)\>\b", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
, but that didn't help.
You'll get most of what what you want by using the regex /<([^>]*)>/. (No need to escape the angle brackets' as angle brackets aren't special characters in most regex engines, including the .NET engine.) The regex I provided will also capture trailing whitespace and any attributes on the tag--parsing those things reliably is way, way beyond the scope of a reasonable regex.
However, be aware that if you're trying to parse XML/HTML with a regex, that way lies madness
Regexes are the wrong tool for parsing XML. Try using the System.Xml.Linq (XElement) API.
Your regex is using \S+ as the wildcard. In english, this is "a series of one or more characters, none of which is non-whitespace". In other words, when the regex <(?<name>\S+)> is applied to this string: '`, the regex will match the entire string. angle brackets are non-whitespace.
I think what you want is "a series of one or more characters, none of which is an angle bracket".
The regex for that is <(?<name>[^>]+)> .
Ahhh, regular expressions. The language designed to look like cartoon swearing.

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