Question

RegEx Expression filtering on escape characters

Asked by: djcheeky

Hi

I originally had a problem, which was solved:
I needed to split a string based on a ( ' ) character, but only when the character was not preceded by a ( ? ) character. In otherwords it would not split / match when the ( ?' ) characters were encountered. This worked fine as seen in the example code and result

Now, my requirement has grown to not only include ( ' ) characters but also ( + ) and ( : ) characters.

So it should match / split when ( ' ) or ( + ) or ( : ) is encountered, but not ( ?' ) or ( ?+ ) or ( ?: )

How do I combine this into one regular expression.
I'm pretty sure its gonna be a quick change to the expression below - I'm just not sure how!

Thanks

String originalString = "UCM+123+?'home goods?''UCM+456+workgoods'";
Regex reg = new Regex("(?<!\\?)\'");
 
string[] results = reg.Split(originalString);
foreach (string match in results)
{
      Console.WriteLine(match);
}
 
/*
RESULTS IN (which is correct):
 
UCM+123+?'home goods?'
UCM+456+workgoods
*/

                                  
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
11:
12:
13:
14:
15:

Select allOpen in new window

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Asked On
2009-06-05 at 02:17:30ID24466407
Topics

C# Programming Language

,

Regular Expressions

Participating Experts
2
Points
50
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: zweiPosted on 2009-06-05 at 02:51:03ID: 24554762

[^?][+:']

                                              
1:

Select allOpen in new window

 

by: djcheekyPosted on 2009-06-05 at 03:10:58ID: 24554883

Thanks zwei - but that doesn't really help me? How does that fit into my example?

 

by: climbgunksPosted on 2009-06-05 at 05:09:14ID: 24555509


Hi again  djcheeky,  

Assuming I understand the C# escaping rules, which I don't, try this:


String originalString = "UCM+123+?'home goods?''UCM+456+workgoods'";
Regex reg = new Regex("(?<!\\?)[\':\+]");

string[] results = reg.Split(originalString);
foreach (string match in results)
{
      Console.WriteLine(match);
}

though,

[':+] may work  (it does in perl inside a char set, not sure about C#)


still don't understand why C# would require the \\?  rather than just \?  but if it works for you, it's all good

 

by: djcheekyPosted on 2009-06-05 at 07:11:35ID: 24556581

Hi Climbgunks! :)

I actually tried that using zwei's suggestion.

The problem is, if i execute it for this string:
String originalString = "UCM+123:?'home goods?''UCM+456?:workgoods+10?+234'";

I get this output (minus the [ ] brackets - just for clarity):

[UCM]
[123]
['home goods']
[UCM]
[456?:workgoods]
[10?+234]

Can you see that the [ ?: ] and the [ ?+ ] are preserved, yet the [ ?' ] is replaced with [ ' ] (the  ? character was removed) as seen in the line ['home goods'] which should be [?'home goods?']

Is there maybe somthing with the single quote that is required?

Thanks

 

by: djcheekyPosted on 2009-06-05 at 07:15:45ID: 24556625

Aaah - my apologies. It was indeed correct!

STUPID MISTAKE on my side - I had modified my example from:

Console.WriteLine("[" + match.Trim() + "]");

to

Console.WriteLine("[" + match.Trim().Replace("?'","'") + "]");

for another example I was busy with!  I'm a bloody fool!!

Gonna split the points because had I not been  moron, Zwei's example would have worked too initially.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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