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c#regex
Pete Alvin
Pete Alvin

Reputation: 4790

C# Regular Expression: Remove leading and trailing double quotes (")

If I have a string like below... what is the regular expression to remove the (optional) leading and trailing double quotes? For extra credit, can it also remove any optional white space outside of the quotes:

string input = "\"quoted string\""   -> quoted string
string inputWithWhiteSpace = "  \"quoted string\"    "  => quoted string

(for C# using Regex.Replace)

Upvotes: 15

Views: 26258

Answers (6)

noseratio
noseratio

Reputation: 61666

My 2c, as I couldn't find what I was looking for. This verion removes the first pair of quotes and spaces on each side of them.

        public static string RemoveQuotes(string text)
        {
            var regex = new Regex(@"^\s*\""\s*(.*?)\s*\""\s*$");
            var match = regex.Match(text);
            if (match.Success && match.Groups.Count == 2)
            {
                return match.Groups[1].Value;
            }
            return text;
        }

Upvotes: 0

LukeH
LukeH

Reputation: 269368

It's overkill to use Regex.Replace for this. Use Trim instead.

string output = input.Trim(' ', '\t', '\n', '\v', '\f', '\r', '"');

And if you only want to remove whitespace that's outside the quotes, retaining any that's inside:

string output = input.Trim().Trim('"');

Upvotes: 43

Brandon Hawbaker
Brandon Hawbaker

Reputation: 554

I created a slightly modified version of another pattern that works pretty well for me. I hope this helps for separating normal command-line parameters and double-quoted sets of words that act as a single parameter.

String pattern = "(\"[^\"]*\"|[^\"\\s]+)(\\s+|$)";

Upvotes: 1

Daniel Brückner
Daniel Brückner

Reputation: 59645

Besides using a regular expression you can just use String.Trim() - much easier to read, understand, and maintain.

var result = input.Trim('"', ' ', '\t');

Upvotes: 10

Amarghosh
Amarghosh

Reputation: 59451

Replace ^\s*"?|"?\s*$ with an empty string.

In C#, the regex would be:

string input = "  \"quoted string\"    "l
string pattern = @"^\s*""?|""?\s*$";
Regex rgx = new Regex(pattern);
string result = rgx.Replace(input, "");
Console.WriteLine(result);

Upvotes: 3

Kamarey
Kamarey

Reputation: 11079

I would use String.Trim method instead, but if you want regex, use this one:

@"^(\s|")+|(\s|")+$"

Upvotes: 1

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