CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexvb.net
Thalia
Thalia

Reputation: 14615

VB.NET match string between same characters

I'll have to read a regex tutorial - so far I have a mental block in this area - right now I am just trying to match the following pattern:

ab234_12345_45678_afddsyyht788959

I am trying to extract the third (likely numeric) item surrounded by underscores (if the string has the wrong pattern, return invalid format, of course).

Something like:

Dim strOriginal As String = "ab234_12345_45678_afddsyyht788959"
Dim strFound As String
Try
    Dim matches As MatchCollection
    Dim regexStuff As New Regex("_.*?_")
    matches = regexStuff.Matches(strOriginal)
    strFound = matches.Item(0).Groups(2).Value.ToString
Catch
    strFound = "invalid"
End Try
MessageBox.Show(strFound)

The problem is with the pattern - I can't figure out anything that works... (I have tried a few other patterns too)

Upvotes: 0

Views: 620

Answers (1)

Gabber
Gabber

Reputation: 5452

Use this regex

[A-Za-z0-9]+_[A-Za-z0-9]+_([A-Za-z0-9]+)

Match the \1 group

If you want the third group to be numeric replace ([A-Za-z0-9]+) with (\d+)

Upvotes: 1

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