Regex from a html parsing, how do I grab a specific string?

Question

I'm trying to specifically get the string after charactername= and before " >. How would I use regex to allow me to catch only the player name?

This is what I have so far, and it's not working. Not working as it doesn't actually print anything. On the client.DownloadString it returns a string like this:

<a href="https://my.examplegame.com/charactername=Atro+Roter" >

So, I know it actually gets string, I'm just stuck on the regex.

using (var client = new WebClient())
        {

            //Example of what the string looks like on Console when I Console.WriteLine(html)
            //<a href="https://my.examplegame.com/charactername=Atro+Roter" >

            // I want the "Atro+Roter"

            string html = client.DownloadString(worldDest + world + inOrderName);
            string playerName = "https://my.examplegame.com/charactername=(.+?)\" >";

            MatchCollection m1 = Regex.Matches(html, playerName);


            foreach (Match m in m1)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(m.Groups[1].Value);
            }
        }

It is working fine.. check ideone.com/4m01zK

karthik manchala
– karthik manchala

2015-06-13 06:21:33 +00:00
Commented Jun 13, 2015 at 6:21 — karthik manchala
– karthik manchala, Commented Jun 13, 2015 at 6:21

Wiktor Stribiżew · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-13 21:02:04Z

1

I'm trying to specifically get the string after charactername= and before " >.

So, you just need a lookbehind with lookahead and use LINQ to get all the match values into a list:

var input = "your input string";
var rx = new Regex(@"(?<=charactername=)[^""]+(?="")";
var res = rx.Matches(input).Cast<Match>().Select(p => p.Value).ToList();

The res variable should hold all your character names now.

answered Jun 13, 2015 at 21:02

Wiktor Stribiżew

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Comments

Simon Whitehead · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-13 06:11:22Z

0

I assume your issue is trying to parse the URL. Don't - use what .NET gives you:

var playerName = "https://my.examplegame.com/?charactername=NAME_HERE";
var uri = new Uri(playerName);
var queryString = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(uri.Query);

Console.WriteLine("Name is: " + queryString["charactername"]);

This is much easier to read and no doubt more performant.

Working sample here: https://dotnetfiddle.net/iJlBKW

answered Jun 13, 2015 at 6:11

Simon Whitehead

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3 Comments

sheepiiHD Over a year ago

I'm actually not trying to parse the URL. I want to use the Name and simply save it into a database with a timestamp by reading off the HTML source code in a website. I want to do it without using an HTMLDocument and simply taking the page source and grabbing specific things, such as the player names. It's going to be used to record all people online. as the above code only grabs people who are online.

Simon Whitehead Over a year ago

Have you considered a library like HtmlAgilityPack?

sheepiiHD Over a year ago

I just said I didn't want to use HTMLDocument... The code works, I just need help with the regex.

lezhkin11 · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-13 15:40:47Z

0

All forward slashes must be unescaped with back slashes like this \/

string input = @"<a href=""https://my.examplegame.com/charactername=Atro+Roter"" >";
 string playerName = @"https:\/\/my.examplegame.com\/charactername=(.+?)""";

 Match match = Regex.Match(input, playerName);
 string result = match.Groups[1].Value;

Result = Atro+Roter

edited Jun 13, 2015 at 15:40

answered Jun 13, 2015 at 6:48

lezhkin11

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2 Comments

sheepiiHD Over a year ago

How would you get all matches from an html source code? Input: string html = client.DownloadString(worldDest + world + inOrderName);

lezhkin11 Over a year ago

Your code is ok. Use Regex.Matxhes and MatchCollection. Just change a pattern. Also add lazy quantifier ?. I changed pattern

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