Regex to get value from variable String

Question

i'm trying to extract a value from a Cookie. cookies are organized with [name]=[value] pairs separated by a ';'. so if i have a cookie string like so:

username=user;password=pass;session="4341234556";

in this example, i only want the value '4341234556' without the quotes.

the value of the session variable is, of course, different for each request made. how can i get just the value of session with a regular expression (without the quotes)? keep in mind that the ordering of the variables is not guaranteed to be the same each time it is returned.

also, i would like to ignore any whitespace characters NOT contained in the value.

Is it guaranteed that all those key value pairs exist? Are they all in a single line? Is the value you want to get always enclosed in double quotes, or can it be enclosed in single quotes as well? — George Tseres
– George Tseres, Commented Feb 6, 2017 at 20:08
@GeorgeTs the only K=V pair guaranteed to exist is 'session="stuff"'. yes, they are all received on a single line, but that is not guaranteed either. — moonlightcheese
– moonlightcheese, Commented Feb 6, 2017 at 20:10

Scott Weaver · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-06 20:09:50Z

2

with a regular "consuming" pattern (requires match group access)

session="([^"]+)" //sessionid is in $1

demo

with a lookbehind (entire match is the sessionid, no match groups required):

(?<=session=")[^"]+

demo

answered Feb 6, 2017 at 20:09

Scott Weaver

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3 Comments

moonlightcheese Over a year ago

this worked great (the second solution). however, is there a way to write this such that it will return the same value even if the quotation marks do not exist? [edit: nevermind, i figured that one out. thanks so much!]

Eduardo Lynch Araya Over a year ago

if only number, u can replace [^"]+ to \d+

Eduardo Lynch Araya Over a year ago

"(?<=session=)"?([^"]+)" (remove quotes) with optional quotes.

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