Regular expression replace (C#)

Question

How to make Regex.Replace for the following texts:

1) "Name's",     "Sex", "Age", "Height_(in)", "Weight (lbs)"
2) " LatD", "LatM ", 'LatS', "NS", "LonD", "LonM", "LonS", "EW", "City", "State"

Result:

1) Name's, Sex, Age, Height (in), Weight (lbs)
2) LatD, LatM, LatS, NS, LonD, LonM, LonS, EW, City, State

Spaces between brackets can be any size (Example 1). There may also be incorrect spaces in brackets (Example 2). Also, instead of spaces, the "_" sign can be used (Example 1). And instead of double quotes, single quotes can be used (Example 2).

As a result, words must be separated with a comma and a space.

Snippet of my code

StreamReader fileReader = new StreamReader(...);
var fileRow = fileReader.ReadLine();
fileRow = Regex.Replace(fileRow, "_", " ");
fileRow = Regex.Replace(fileRow, "\"", "");
var fileDataField = fileRow.Split(',');

Not to do with the question, but it's Names - no apostrophe. — Reinstate Monica Cellio
– Reinstate Monica Cellio, Commented Jun 12, 2019 at 11:25
Probably, fileRow = Regex.Replace(fileRow, @"(?:"([^"]*)"|'([^']*)')(?:(,)(\s)*|\s*$)", m => $"{m.Groups[1].Value.Trim()}{m.Groups[2].Value.Trim()}{m.Groups[3].Value}{m.Groups[4].Value}") — Wiktor Stribiżew
– Wiktor Stribiżew, Commented Jun 12, 2019 at 11:27

Toto · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-12 11:47:43Z

2

I don't well know C# syntax, but this regex does the job:

Find: (?:_|^["']\h*|\h*["']$|\h*["']\h*,\h*["']\h*)
Replace: A space

Explanation:

(?:                         # non capture group
    _                       # undersscore
  |                         # OR
    ^["']\h*                # beginning of line, quote or apostrophe, 0 or more horizontal spaces
  |                         # OR
    \h*["']$                # 0 or more horizontal spaces, quote or apostrophe, end of line
  |                         # OR
    \h*["']\h*              # 0 or more horizontal spaces, quote or apostrophe, 0 or more horizontal spaces
    ,                       #
    \h*["']\h*              # 0 or more horizontal spaces, quote or apostrophe, 0 or more horizontal spaces
)                           # end group

Demo

answered Jun 12, 2019 at 11:47

Toto

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2 Comments

MiT Over a year ago

\h - [[:blank:]], ok)

Toto Over a year ago

@MiT: OK, thank you, may be \s can be used instead of \h

Chrᴉz remembers Monica · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-12 12:06:53Z

How about a simple straight string manipulation way?

using System;
using System.Linq;
static void Main(string[] args)
{
    string dirty1 = "\"Name's\",     \"Sex\", \"Age\", \"Height_(in)\", \"Weight (lbs)\"";
    string dirty2 = "\" LatD\", \"LatM \", 'LatS', \"NS\", \"LonD\", \"LonM\", \"LonS\", \"EW\", \"City\", \"State\"";
    Console.WriteLine(Clean(dirty1));
    Console.WriteLine(Clean(dirty2));

    Console.ReadKey();
}

private static string Clean(string dirty)
{
    return dirty.Split(',').Select(item => item.Trim(' ', '"', '\'')).Aggregate((a, b) => string.Join(", ", a, b));
}

private static string CleanNoLinQ(string dirty)
{
    string[] items = dirty.Split(',');
    for(int i = 0; i < items.Length; i++)
    {
        items[i] = items[i].Trim(' ', '"', '\'');
    }
    return String.Join(", ", items);
}

You can even replace the LinQ with a foreach and then string.Join().

Easier to understand - easier to maintain.

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