Question

How to represent wildcards in regular expression

Asked by: sepknow

How to represent wildcards character * in regular expression?
I want to relace any number of characters in between
between two keys with literally nothing (including the two keys):
eg.
Key1*Key2xxxx
becomes
xxxx

I am able to do this in Microsoft Visual Studio with ease but not other text editor that does not provide wildcards search and replace.

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Asked On
2008-09-23 at 23:12:48ID23757607
Topics

Regular Expressions

,

Microsoft Visual C#.Net

,

Visual Studio

Participating Experts
4
Points
500
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: dampseyPosted on 2008-09-23 at 23:26:45ID: 22557242

The following sample finds Any string between your words (Key1 and Key2 in this sample) and replace it with "Hello"

subjectString="aaaaaaKey1HeyKey2xxxx";


string resultString = null;
try {
resultString = Regex.Replace(subjectString, "(.*Key1).*(Key2.*)", "$1Hello$2");
} catch (ArgumentException ex) {
// Syntax error in the regular expression
}

 

by: sepknowPosted on 2008-09-23 at 23:30:57ID: 22557263

Hi dampsey, thanks. How should I phrase the expression in a text editor search and find textbox?

 

by: pratima_mcsPosted on 2008-09-23 at 23:31:11ID: 22557267

 

by: BinuthPosted on 2008-09-23 at 23:31:11ID: 22557268

     string strWildChar = "Key1*Key2XXX";
                  System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex r = new System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex(@"Key1\*Key2");
                  strWildChar = r.Replace(strWildChar , string.Empty);

 

by: HardiPosted on 2008-09-23 at 23:32:26ID: 22557275

Replace

Key1.*Key2xxxx

with

xxxx

 

by: HardiPosted on 2008-09-23 at 23:33:03ID: 22557282

and make sure "Regular expression" is checked of course :-)

 

by: sepknowPosted on 2008-09-23 at 23:35:45ID: 31499574

Thanks guys.

 

by: HardiPosted on 2008-09-23 at 23:35:49ID: 22557291

. (dot) represents "any character" in regular expression.
And * (star) means it can occurs 0 or more times.
If you need at least one character between the 2 keys, use + which means 1 or more occurences.
eg.
Key1.+Key2xxxx

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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