Values from a string using regex (.net)

Question

I'm attempting to get the values

Title: some, song title
Length: 5:35
Rating: 0
Genre: Other
Size: 7.6 MB

from a string, however I need it so they can be placed anywhere in the string for example..

Title: some, song title, Length: 5:35, Rating: 0, Genre: Other, Size: 7.6 MB
Size: 7.6 MB, Title: some, song title, Length: 5:35, Genre: Other, Rating: 0

Would both return the values above

Thanks

Are they separated by newline or how do you know when a song ends? — Yet Another Geek
– Yet Another Geek, Commented Jun 13, 2011 at 15:27

Brad Christie · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-13 15:35:17Z

3

Well, you could do something like this:

/Title: (.*?)(?=,\s\w+:|$)/               Song Title
/Length: (\d+:\d+)/                       Length
/Rating: (\d+)/                           Rating
/Genre: (.*?)(?=,\s\w+:|$)/               Genre
/Size: (\d+(?:\.\d)?+\s\w+)/              Size

The (?=,\s\w+:|$) pattern just makes sure it only grabs a value for the "field" (i.e. stops at either the end of the line or the next grouping).

edited Jun 13, 2011 at 15:35

answered Jun 13, 2011 at 15:29

Brad Christie

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3 Comments

Qtax Over a year ago

Could add \b's in the beginning of them. Those $ need /m. Still will be trouble if title is foo, bar: baz.

Brad Christie Over a year ago

@Qtax: Indeed, there are a lot of ways I could make this more robust. But, given no real sample to pool from, and not knowing what the end-game was, I figured I'd offer as simple (and working) solution as possible, instead of trying to [forcibly/presumably] redirect down another path.

Adam Over a year ago

Thanks, I didn't think to make different matches.

zellio · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-13 15:25:12Z

3

This is really more a job for a parser than for Regex. You could split the string on it's spaces and loop through looking for colons and calculating what is what's value that way. Using regex here will be either inefficient or drive you crazy.

answered Jun 13, 2011 at 15:25

zellio

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Comments

Jason Evans · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-27 14:21:29Z

2

Are you able to control the format of the input string? If so, then change it to something like:

Title: some, song title; Length: 5:35; Rating: 0;

Use ; rather then ,. You can the split the string:

string[] parts = input.Split(';');

and work with the parts individually. Don't waste your time with regex in this case.

edited Sep 27, 2011 at 14:21

user142162

answered Jun 13, 2011 at 15:27

Jason Evans

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1 Comment

Adam Over a year ago

It comes from accDescription from an IAccessible object, in short no I'm unable to format the string

Yuriy Faktorovich · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-13 15:30:27Z

0

I wouldn't use Regex and instead do

string input = 
    "Title: some, song title; Length: 5:35; Rating: 0; Genre: Other; Size: 7.6 MB";

var values = input.Split(new[] { "; " }, StringSplitOptions.None)
    .Select(v => v.Split(new[] { ": " }, StringSplitOptions.None))
    .ToDictionary(v => v[0], v => v[1]);

I had to change the separator to semicolon instead of comma.

answered Jun 13, 2011 at 15:30

Yuriy Faktorovich

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1 Comment

Adam Over a year ago

That's hard part as I do not have control of the format of the string

Jeff Paulsen · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-13 15:47:59Z

Here's one way of doing it without a regex:

dim inputs = {"Title: some, song title, Length: 5:35, Rating: 0, Genre: Other, Size: 7.6 MB", 
              "Size: 7.6 MB, Title: some, song title, Length: 5:35, Genre: Other, Rating: 0" }

for each s in inputs
    dim output as new dictionary(of string, string)
    dim tokens = s.split(", ")
    dim lastKey = ""
    for each t in tokens
        if t.contains(":") then
            dim kv = t.split(":")
            lastKey = kv(0).trim
            output.add(lastkey, "")
            for n = 1 to kv.length - 1
                output(lastkey) &= kv(n) & if( n = kv.length -1, "", ":")
            next n              
        else
            output(lastkey) &= ", " & t.trim
        end if
    next t
next s

This breaks if you have a key that contains a ":".

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