Regex, extract variable name

Question

I am in a situation that I need to extract words/variables from a string(expression). I tried to accomplish this. The following situation is valid:

OK/Test(ANSWER[12])+SUM(Test(ANSWER[..]))*OK+ANSWER[14]

I need to extract the "OK" "variables". I managed to extract other components like ANSWER[..] e.g. These variables are dynamic ofcourse.

I already tried things like:

/[a-zA-Z]*(?!\(|\[)/g

But this also returns SU (From SUM, which is not desired)

Thanks in advance :)

Edit: clarification

I need to extract words that are only surrounded by whitespace (begin or end of string) or +-*/ operators. Words that have ()[] before or after them should be ignored.

I tried to explain myself better in a edit I did just make. I just use Regex.Matches(). So any C# code is irrelevant right? — M1sterPl0w
– M1sterPl0w, Commented Nov 13, 2019 at 8:49
The code is also relevant as you posted a regex literal and C# does not support this notation. Try @"(?<![^\s+*/-])\w+(?![^\s+*/-])" or @"(?<![^\s+*/-])[A-Za-z]+(?![^\s+*/-])" (depending on what the "word" is for you here). — Wiktor Stribiżew
– Wiktor Stribiżew, Commented Nov 13, 2019 at 8:50

Wiktor Stribiżew · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-13 08:52:06Z

1

You may use

(?<![^\s+*/-])\w+(?![^\s+*/-])

See the regex demo

Details

(?<![^\s+*/-]) - a whitespace boundary with +, -, / and * included
\w+ - 1+ word chars
(?![^\s+*/-]) - a whitespace boundary with +, -, / and * included

C# sample code:

var results = Regex.Matches(text, @"(?<![^\s+*/-])\w+(?![^\s+*/-])")
        .Cast<Match>()
        .Select(x => x.Value);

answered Nov 13, 2019 at 8:52

Wiktor Stribiżew

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