Pattern For .NET Regex Replace Method

Question

I want to use the .NET Regex Replace method to separate numbers in a string.

String:"Delivery order #135670 is ready for pick up."

Replacement String:"Delivery order # 1 3 5 6 7 0 is ready for pick up."

This is as far as I've gotten.

Matching Pattern:((?<=\#)\d+)

I think this means: If a hash sign is the previous character, match one or more decimal digits. This pattern can be matched one time.

I have no idea how to do the replacement pattern.

If this seems to you like an odd thing to do, it's a way to get a speech synthesizer to speak "number one three five six seven zero" instead of "number one hundred thirty five thousand six hundred seventy".

Bas · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-10 06:36:39Z

1

We can use a MatchEvaluator (lambda) to add spaces:

string value = "Delivery order #135670 is ready for pick up.";
Regex r = new Regex(@"(#\d+)");
string result = r.Replace(value, m => string.Join(" ", 
                          m.Captures[0].Value.ToCharArray()));
//result = "Delivery order # 1 3 5 6 7 0 is ready for pick up.";

The regex (#\d+) does the following:

enter image description here

answered Jul 10, 2014 at 6:36

Bas

27.2k8 gold badges56 silver badges89 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Avinash Raj · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-10 06:42:15Z

0

Use this pattern and in the replacement part, replace the matched ones with a space character.

(?<=\d|#)(?! )

DEMO

answered Jul 10, 2014 at 6:42

Avinash Raj

175k32 gold badges247 silver badges289 bronze badges

Comments

zx81 · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-10 07:21:47Z

0

Here is the one-liner you're looking for:

String replaced = Regex.Replace(yourString, @"(?=\d)", " ");

In the regex demo, look at the substitutions pane at the bottom.

Explanation

The regex matches a position, not characters. This is called a zero-width match.
The lookahead (?=\d) asserts that what follows is a digit. If you want to be exact about it, you could use (?=\[0-9]) as .NET \d also matches Thai digits and so on, but that doesn't seem like a big risk here
We replace with a space.

Reference

answered Jul 10, 2014 at 7:21

zx81

42k10 gold badges92 silver badges106 bronze badges

Comments

Fred Chateau · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-10 07:41:16Z

0

Thanks to everyone for your help. After reading the advice of Bas, zx81 and Avinash I put together the following, which is being used successfully in the application.

Regex regex = new Regex(@"(?<=\d|#)");
message = regex.Replace(message, " ");

answered Jul 10, 2014 at 7:41

Fred Chateau

8791 gold badge6 silver badges17 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Pattern For .NET Regex Replace Method

4 Answers 4

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related