CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#regexpattern-matching
Kevin Jensen Petersen
Kevin Jensen Petersen

Reputation: 513

Regex to extract text from a pattern in C#

I have a string pattern, which contains a ID and Text to make markup easier for our staff.

The pattern to create a "fancy" button in our CMS is:

(button_section_ID:TEXT)

Example:

(button_section_25:This is a fancy button)

How do I extract the "This is a fancy button" part of that pattern? The pattern will always be the same. I tried to do some substring stuff but that got complicated very fast.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2544

Answers (2)

Wiktor Stribiżew
Wiktor Stribiżew

Reputation: 626802

If the text is always in the format you specified, you just need to trim parentheses and then split with ::

var res = input.Trim('(', ')').Split(':')[1];

If the string is a substring, use a regex:

var match = Regex.Match(input, @"\(button_section_\d+:([^()]+)\)");
var res = match.Success ? match.Groups[1].Value : "";

See this regex demo.

enter image description here

Explanation:

  • \(button_section_ - a literal (button_section_
  • \d+ - 1 or more digits
  • : - a colon
  • ([^()]+) - Group 1 capturing 1+ characters other than ( and ) (you may replace with ([^)]*) to make matching safer and allow an empty string and ( inside this value)
  • )- a literal)`

Upvotes: 2

Baldrick
Baldrick

Reputation: 11840

The following .NET regex will give you a match containing a group with the text you want:

var match = Regex.Matches(input, @"\(button_section_..:(.*)\)");

The braces define a match group, which will give you everything between the button section, and the final curly brace.

Upvotes: 0

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