Given a String...
M0 Apple Sauce M1 Peanut Butter M2 Porcupine M3 Quesadilla M4 Margarita
How could I split that String into..
M0 Apple Sauce
M1 Peanut Butter
M2 Porcupine
M3 Quesadilla
M4 Margarita
Is there a way to put M0, M1,..., M4 in an array, and then use that array to split the string?
Full credit to Wiktor Stribizew:
Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions
Public Class frmMain
Private Sub frmMain_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
Dim stString As String = "M0 Apple Sauce M1 Peanut Butter M2 Porcupine M3 Quesadilla M4 Margarita"
Dim arrString() As String
arrString = Regex.Split(stString, "(?!^)(?=\bM\d+\b)")
For Each st As String In arrString
MessageBox.Show(st)
Next
End Sub
End Class
Regex explanation:
The fact that the regex string is being used in a split method means that your regex pattern's goal is to find positions in the string upon which to split.
The first segment of the regex string !?^ simply asserts that there is to be no 'match' at position 0. We do have a match at position 0, but we don't want a 0-length string in the output, so we use this stipulation. I'll breakdown the second subexpression ?=\bM\d+\b:
?= is used to say "we're looking ahead of the cursor for matches of the following pattern" - without consuming the text\b adds that the match must occur where an alphanumeric character is beside a non-alphanumeric character (in this case, always a space and an M); this is any 'word boundary'M is indeed the literal character match of M\d matches any decimal digit+ means that there may be any number of decimal digits in a row at this point (one or more decimal digits)\b details that the digit(s) end with another word boundary
"(?!^)(?=\bM\d+\b)" does the job?
M plus an integer? The code i'm going to be using this in will have M's all the way up to M60. Will it work for that?
(?=...) is a positive lookahead that only checks for the pattern match, but does not consume text. \b matches a word boundary (not just alphanumeric/non-alpha transitions). + match 1 or more instances, not any.Use Regex.Split method to split parts with regular expression.
Dim stringToSplit As String = "M0 Apple Sauce M1 Peanut Butter M2 Porcupine M3 Quesadilla M4 Margarita"
Dim stringParts = Regex.Split(stringToSplit, "(?!^)(?=\bM\d+\b)")
For i = 0 To stringParts.Length - 1
Console.WriteLine(stringParts(i))
Next
This code will produce following output:
M0 Apple Sauce
M1 Peanut Butter
M2 Porcupine
M3 Quesadilla
M4 Margarita
Regex is a great answer for this kind of wonky stuff. But there are other ways if you don't like Regex. The Step keyword can do this.
Dim sText As String = "M0 Apple Sauce M1 Peanut Butter M2 Porcupine M3 Quesadilla M4 Margarita"
Dim split() As String = sText.Trim.Split(" ")
Dim sResult As String = String.Empty
For i = 0 To UBound(split) Step 2
sResult &= split(i) & " " & split(i + 1) & vbCrLf
Next
MsgBox(sResult)
Just remember to ensure the data is always in pairs, and each element is separated by a space.
Good luck!
Regex.Split(s, "(?!^)(?=\bM\d+\b)").