'net Regex Help - Dev Shed

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February 15th, 2013, 11:34 AM

KevinHunter

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Other - 'net Regex Help

Hi folks , Im new to regex and was hoping someone might be able to give me some advice.

Im trying to use regex in VB.Net to split a string whenever there is a space except when it between quotes. I also want to keep the quotes.

I tried using \s+(?=([^""]*""[^""]*""[^""]*)*$|[^""]*$)

and it works on most string but here are a few lines that it doesnt work on !

/config/userctrl/A/enc "X001" "X101" "X201" "X300"

I want to get

/config/userctrl/A/enc
"X001"
"X101"
"X201"
"X300"

But get

/config/userctrl/A/enc
"X300"
"X001"
"X300"
"X101"
"X300"
"X201"
"X300"
"X300"

Same thing happens with

/config/userctrl/A/btn "O40" "O42" "X201" "X300" "P0051" "P0052" "P0053" "P0058"

and /ch/01/config "Drum Room" 2 CY 1
gives me
/ch/01/config
"Drum Room" 2 CY 1
"Drum Room"
2
CY
1

Where am I going wrong ???

Thanks in advance for any help you can give

Kev

February 15th, 2013, 02:16 PM

requinix

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Actually the expression is correct: it's your output that's wrong.

The parentheses you used meant that the regex is capturing whatever was matched.

Code:

/config/userctrl/A/enc ' segment
"X300"                 ' capture
"X001"                 ' segment
"X300"                 ' capture
"X101"                 ' segment
"X300"                 ' capture
"X201"                 ' segment
"X300"                 ' capture
"X300"                 ' segment

There may be an option in .NET where you can exclude the captured groups and keep only the actual split segments themselves, but you can just as easily make that group not capture.

Code:

"\s+(?=(?:[^""]*""[^""]*""[^""]*)*$|[^""]*$)"

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February 15th, 2013, 03:34 PM

KevinHunter

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Join Date: Feb 2013

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Quote:

Originally Posted by requinix

Actually the expression is correct: it's your output that's wrong.

The parentheses you used meant that the regex is capturing whatever was matched.

Code:

/config/userctrl/A/enc ' segment
"X300"                 ' capture
"X001"                 ' segment
"X300"                 ' capture
"X101"                 ' segment
"X300"                 ' capture
"X201"                 ' segment
"X300"                 ' capture
"X300"                 ' segment

There may be an option in .NET where you can exclude the captured groups and keep only the actual split segments themselves, but you can just as easily make that group not capture.

Code:

"\s+(?=(?:[^""]*""[^""]*""[^""]*)*$|[^""]*$)"

Worked perfectly

Thank you for your help.

Kev

Other - 'net Regex Help

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