CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regex
Tommi Quack
Tommi Quack

Reputation: 45

Making regex match optional

I am new to regex and I need your help. I need to parse the following text:

2DB337649|required-match|groupName1=value1^groupName2=value2^junk1=junkval^junk2=junkval^groupName3=value3^junk3=junkval^groupName4=value4^`

I need to get the values out of it while ignoring the junk. I have used the following regex:

(?=.*required-match).+groupName1=(?<group1>.*?)\^groupName2=(?<group2>[^^]+).+groupName3=(?<group3>[^^]+).+groupName4=(?<group4>.*?)\^

I works fine but the problem is that sometimes value groupName3 is missing and I get no matches.

Is there a way to get the groupName3 if it is found and if not just go further to groupName4?

Link to example

Thank you.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 41

Answers (1)

The fourth bird
The fourth bird

Reputation: 163632

The part with groupName3 can be in an optional non capturing group and you could make the .+ non greedy using .*?

(?:.+?groupName3=(?<group3>[^^]+))?

The pattern might look like

(?=.*required-match).+?groupName1=(?<group1>.*?)\^groupName2=(?<group2>[^^]+)(?:.+?groupName3=(?<group3>[^^]+))?.+?groupName4=(?<group4>.*?)\^

Regex demo

Upvotes: 2

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