RegEx Prob. Beats me!

Hi,

I just started looking at RegEx, and used one of gigemboy's to get started, which was great!

Now though I have a specific prob and I can't seem to work it out. I have a file in this format:

VB Code:

Dim Test As String = "There once was a\nboy named Freddy \nand he\nliked his big fat Teddy\n"
Dim Matches As MatchCollection = Regex.Matches(Test, "((?<!\\n)\s*[A-Za-z]+\s*)+(?=\\n)")

"\n" is a line feed character. I want to pull out all the seperate lines. With the above code I get:

There once was a
nboy named Freddy
nand he
nliked his big fat Teddy

...notice the "n" at the beginning if the 2nd and onward lines.

BTW the above is just a sample sentence for the format.

Thx for your help. RegEx looks like being really cool. Pushing the comfort zone. :duck:

Try the below Regex sample out. One of the differences was to place each character in its own set of brackets, so it looks for a slash, and then an "n".

VB Code:

Dim Test As String = "There once was a\nboy named Freddy \nand he\nliked his big fat Teddy\n"
 
        'using Regex
        Dim Matches As System.Text.RegularExpressions.MatchCollection = _
            System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Matches(Test, _
            "^.*?(?=[\\][n])|(?<=[\\][n]).*?(?=[\\][n])", System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.Singleline)
        For Each Match As System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match In Matches
            MessageBox.Show(Match.Value)
        Next
 
        'using just string.repleace
        Dim FinalString As String = Test.Replace("\n", Environment.NewLine)
        MessageBox.Show(FinalString)

In this case, it might be easier to just use String.Replace, however, learning Regex can be very beneficial in the future if you ever need it...

Or use string.split on the \n

Okay, getting there. Thx.

This tool has helped me with regex. It is called Expresso.

http://www.ultrapico.com/Expresso.htm