[Ryano121]

Hi,

I am having a bit of bother trying to come up with a Regex that matches a word followed by an arbitrary number of numbers seperated by a comma.

Basically i'm trying to match strings like 'word13,53,3 until the string reaches any of the binary operators (+,-,*,/,^ etc).

So far i've come up with

@"word(-?\d+.?\d*)"

which to be honest is a really bad start as it only matches the first number after the word

I tried to put the expression in brackets and use the expression

@"word\(([^\(\)]+)\)(\^|!?)" 

which worked only that my program always deals with brackets first and removes them after they've been solved for which brings me to the this problem

Any help would be appreciated

[Momerath]

@"word\d+(,\d+)*" should do the trick.

[Ryano121]

@Momerath - that works like an absolute charm, Thanks a lot!

The only problem i have now is how to get just the number portion out of the match. Because i am using a matchcollection for the whole program i need to find a way to get just the 1,2,3 portion of word1,2,3.

I have tried using groups[0] and groups[1] which return the whole expression and ,3 respectively

Can you think of any possible way of getting just the numbers from the matchcollection?

[Ryano121]

scrap the above comment, i just managed to solve it

The only problem now is that the regex doesnt match numbers with a decimal point

This post has been edited by Ryano121: 15 March 2011 - 01:14 PM

[lordofduct]

replace \d+ with \d+(\.\d+)?

[Ryano121]

Thanks a lot lordofduct, works like a dream!

[Ryano121]

After a bit of testing i realised that the regex is unable to match negative numbers.

The current regex is

@"word\d+(\.\d+)?(,\d+(\.\d+)?)*"

There is probably a simple solution to math both positive and negative numbers after the word (i hope anyways)

Any ideas?

Thanks again

[Curtis Rutland]

I don't have anything constructive to add, but I feel compelled to share this old-as-hell regex joke:

Quote

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.

[lordofduct]

Ryano121, on 17 March 2011 - 09:56 AM, said:

After a bit of testing i realised that the regex is unable to match negative numbers.

The current regex is

@"word\d+(\.\d+)?(,\d+(\.\d+)?)*"

There is probably a simple solution to math both positive and negative numbers after the word (i hope anyways)

Any ideas?

Thanks again

a negative symbol is used in front of a number to make it negative

-

the negative sign is optional

?

put together and place in front of our already existing regex for a decimal number

-?\d+(\.\d+)?

that reads:

optionally starts with a '-' sign, followed by 1 or more digits of 0-9, optionally followed by a '.' and 1 or more digits of 0-9

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 17 March 2011 - 11:10 AM

[SixOfEleven]

insertAlias, on 17 March 2011 - 01:15 PM, said:

I don't have anything constructive to add, but I feel compelled to share this old-as-hell regex joke:

Quote

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.

Sometimes it is much easier to just parse the string by hand and trying to get regex can be a major pain. So that old joke is oh, so true.

[Ryano121]

@lordofduct - Thanks for that little mini tutorial, now got it completely working (if possible when using Regex's)

@insertalias - realy hit the nail on the head there, especially in my case!

Its just a shame that regular expressions can be (in my opinion at least) so helpful in certain circumstances.

Thanks all for your excellent help

[Curtis Rutland]

Anyone care to see the RegEx to validate RFC 822 standard email addresses?

Quote

(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:(?:(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]
)+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:
\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(
?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[
\t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\0
31]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\
](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+
(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:
(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*|(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z
|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)
?[ \t])*)*\<(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:@(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\
r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[
\t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)
?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]
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\t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*
)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]
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?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)*\<(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:@(?:[^()<>@,;
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@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*(?:,@(?:(?:\r\n)?[
\t])*(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,
;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]
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".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*)*:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)?
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\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:
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"()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])
*))*@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])
+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\
.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z
|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*\>(?:(
?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*)?;\s*)

Not a joke. And it's not even fully complete!

Quote

This regular expression will only validate addresses that have had any comments stripped and replaced with whitespace

[lordofduct]

that one is funny

hey ya gotta give it to perl's regex for actually being able to handle it though. I mean shit, as it says on that page:

Quote

The grammar described in RFC 822 is surprisingly complex. Implementing validation with regular expressions somewhat pushes the limits of what it is sensible to do with regular expressions, although Perl copes well

[Ryano121]

Well it seems that my Regex problem is still here

I just realised that i need to not only match individual numbers but 'lists' of numbers as well

for example word({1,2,3,4,5},{5,346,3})

I suppose i could change the existing one:

word-?\d+(\.\d+)?(,-?\d+(\.\d+)?)*

to include the options of the curly brackets for the lists which isnt too hard. My only problem is how to modify it to accept lists followed by numbers seperated by commas

I had a little play around yet it quickly got a bit hard of hand with optional characters

such as word({1,2,3},4,{5,6,7}) :S

Hopefully this wont make it as long as the email address validator insertalias

Any ideas?

Thanks yet again

[AdamSpeight2008]

Why don't you download a tool to help with REGEXs

Regex Designer