[2005] Parsing Text

[tylerm]

I believe I asked this type of question before, but in a different manner. I'm trying to write a way of reading data in this format:

	"SECTION_NAME"
	{
		"ControlName"	"Button"
		"fieldName"	"ButtonItem1"
		"xpos"		"489"
		"ypos"		"400"
		"zpos"		"290"
		"wide"		"400"
		"tall"		"180"
		"autoResize"	"0"
		"pinCorner"	"0"
		"visible"		"1"
		"enabled"		"1"
		"tabPosition"	"0"
		"settitlebarvisible"	"1"
		"title"	"Hellow World!"
		"sizable"	"0"
	}

How would I first look for the section of data called SECTION_NAME (Which is contained using {} ).

Then, the more important part, how would I go about reading, lets say, the variable for "title".

I'm trying to write a function like so:

Public Function Data_Read(ByVal section As String, ByVal variable As String) As String

Public Function Data_Write(ByVal section As String, ByVal variable As String, ByVal value As String)

Thanks guys. I know I can bother some with my redudant questions.

[Mr.No]

You haven't mentioned what is the size of the file that constains these text but I believe it should be reasonable as it seems to the source code of a program. The way I would implement my solution would be as follows:

1. Define a class that would have the properties SectionName, PropertyName and PropertyValue
2. Define a Collection class to hold a collection of my user defined class.
3. Sequentially read the text file and detect a Section name
4. Until you detect a closing } create objects of tour class having the section name that you detected
5. Implement method to receive sectionname, property to return value. Overload this method as required to receive lesser or more arguments to return the values.

This is a perfect candidate to try out the Object Oriented features of VB.NET.

[gigemboy]

Or you can just create your own class and make it serializable. Then you can just serialize to an XML file and deserialize that back into an object with very little code...

[tylerm]

What would be a good way, at least for now, to just seperate sections, since sections are seperated like so:

"SECTION_1"
{
}
"SECTION_2"
{
}

[penagate]

Crudely: you could read it into a string, split on '}' and then split each part of that on '{'. Then you would have the name and the members.

[tylerm]

I did a quick and dirty way of loading the section names. I just need to figure out how to strip any line brakes and quote characters.

Code:

lb_Sections.Items.Clear()
        Dim ResourceStream As String = ResText.Text
        Dim SplitsArray() As String = Split(ResourceStream, "}")
        Dim i As Integer
        For i = 0 To SplitsArray.GetUpperBound(0)
            Dim FinalArray As Array = SplitsArray(i).Split("{")
            lb_Sections.Items.Add(FinalArray(0))
        Next

Any ideas?

I guess I'll just start with each step of the process and work it out slowly.

[Mr.No]

I'd use regular expressions.

I've amended your code a little bit

Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions
 
Sub YourMethod()
 
      lb_Sections.Items.Clear()
        Dim ResourceStream As String = ResText.Text
        Dim SplitsArray() As String =  Regex.Split(ResourceStream , "{",  RegexOptions.Multiline) 
        Dim Lines()
    
        Dim i As Integer
        For i = 0 To SplitsArray.GetUpperBound(0)
            Lines = Regex.Split(SplitsArray(i), Environment.NewLine, RegexOptions.Multiline)
            For Each LineItem As String in Lines
               LineItem = LineItem.Trim()
               If LineItem.StartsWith(""") Then
                   ' add code to detect the next double quote after the 
                   ' the first one and then the next etc.
                
               End If
            Next
 
 
            ' lb_Sections.Items.Add(FinalArray(0))
        Next
End Sub

[penagate]

I don't see any reason to use regular expression split instead of regular split. You're not even supplying a regular expression.

[tylerm]

I knew I'd run into this problem, but I get an error because there is three " and you need 2 to make a pair, so 4 total. Solutions?

[penagate]

I knew I'd run into this problem, but I get an error because there is three " and you need 2 to make a pair, so 4 total. Solutions?

Not sure what you mean, can you examplify us?

[Mr.No]

If you get more than 4 double quotes in a line it means that "" actually means a double quote within the value i.e. the first double quote is acting like the escape character for the double quote in the value. I'd suggest you first replace "" with say ~, split the line between key and value and the replace the ~ with one double quote.

[Mr.No]

I don't see any reason to use regular expression split instead of regular split. You're not even supplying a regular expression.

Well I propose regular expressions mainly because if you're an expert in Regular expressions you can easily split these texts by writing the right regular expressions. And secondly I don't like using the Split function on its own, looks too VB6 to me.

[tylerm]

Not sure what you mean, can you examplify us?

If I have 3 quotes, Visual Studio throws an error, because it's expecting a closing quote.

If LineItem.StartsWith(""") Then

[penagate]

Use a double quote within a string literal to represent a quote character:

If LineItem.StartsWith("""") Then

Or, better, you could use a character literal, but you have the same problem:

If LineItem.StartsWith(""""c) Then

Finally, you could use a ToChar:

If LineItem.StartsWith(Convert.ToChar(34)) Then

[Mr.No]

I guess I misunderstood Tylerm issue with three double quotes, I didn't realise it was my sample quote that was wrong

Well Tylerm I'd use

If LineItem.StartsWith(Convert.ToChar(34)) Then

as suggested by Penagate

[penagate]

Well I propose regular expressions mainly because if you're an expert in Regular expressions you can easily split these texts by writing the right regular expressions. And secondly I don't like using the Split function on its own, looks too VB6 to me.

I'm sorry, I completely missed this post in my haste to reply to the quotes issue.

You can indeed use regular expressions though splitting is IMO easier for those unfamiliar with regex, though less powerful of course.

You're also right about global Split(), it should be

Dim SplitsArray() As String = ResourceStream.Split("}"c)

[tylerm]

I can't help but think that the structure of of the format really looks like XML:

<section name="SECTION_1">
	<Property name="ControlName">Button</Property>
	<Property name="fieldName">ButtonItem1</Property>
	<Property name="xpos">489</Property>
	<Property name="ypos">400</Property>
	<Property name="zpos">290</Property>
	<Property name="wide">400</Property>
	<Property name="tall">180</Property>
	<Property name="autoResize">0</Property>
	<Property name="pinCorner">0</Property>
	<Property name="visible">1</Property>
	<Property name="enabled">1</Property>
	<Property name="tabPosition">0</Property>
	<Property name="settitlebarvisible">1</Property>
	<Property name="title">Hellow World!</Property>
	<Property name="sizable">0</Property>
</section>

	"SECTION_1"
	{
		"ControlName"	"Button"
		"fieldName"	"ButtonItem1"
		"xpos"		"489"
		"ypos"		"400"
		"zpos"		"290"
		"wide"		"400"
		"tall"		"180"
		"autoResize"	"0"
		"pinCorner"	"0"
		"visible"		"1"
		"enabled"		"1"
		"tabPosition"	"0"
		"settitlebarvisible"	"1"
		"title"	"Hellow World!"
		"sizable"	"0"
	}

[Mr.No]

It does indeed look like XML but I guess the designer wanted to avoid redundant closining tags and was more geard towards JSON. This format is sometimes used as a subsititute to the XML in AJAX. But then its proper format has a colon between the variable and the value like below

"SECTION_1" :
    {
        "ControlName" : "Button"
        "fieldName":    "ButtonItem1"
        "xpos"      :"489"
        "ypos"  :   "400"
        "zpos"      :"290"
        "wide"  :   "400"
        "tall"  :   "180"
        "autoResize":   "0"
        "pinCorner" :"0"
        "visible"       :"1"
        "enabled"       :"1"
        "tabPosition"   :"0"
        "settitlebarvisible":   "1"
        "title":    "Hellow World!"
        "sizable"   :"0"
    }

By the way it would seem your key/value is seperated by a TAB character, if thats the case then splitting them is much easier, just split each line on TAB and remove double quotes.

[penagate]

JSON wouldn't have quotes around names, only values.

[Mr.No]

JSON wouldn't have quotes around names, only values.

Not to get side tracked from the main thread but it can. Here's a sample from http://www.json.org/js.html

var myJSONObject = {"bindings": [
        {"ircEvent": "PRIVMSG", "method": "newURI", "regex": "^http://.*"},
        {"ircEvent": "PRIVMSG", "method": "deleteURI", "regex": "^delete.*"},
        {"ircEvent": "PRIVMSG", "method": "randomURI", "regex": "^random.*"}
    ]
};

[penagate]

Ah... yes, it can, but it needn't.

[tylerm]

Okay, I'm able to parse PropertyName and PropertyValue, but I run across errors when I leave section names' in because I'm using tab a s delimnator:




As well, is it possible to specify in the .Split an infinite amount of tabs? Meaning in the source file, it can have only 1 tab at the moment, is it possible for it to contain 3 or 4 or 5 tabs and still be read.

Here's what I have for code so far:

ListView1.Items.Clear()
        Dim ResourceStream As String = resData.Text
        Dim SplitsArray() As String = Regex.Split(ResourceStream, "{", RegexOptions.Multiline)
        Dim Lines()
 
        Dim i As Integer
        For i = 0 To SplitsArray.GetUpperBound(0)
            Lines = Regex.Split(SplitsArray(i), Environment.NewLine, RegexOptions.Multiline)
            For Each LineItem As String In Lines
                LineItem = LineItem.Trim()
                If LineItem.StartsWith(Convert.ToChar(34)) Then
                    ' add code to detect the next double quote after the 
                    ' the first one and then the next etc.
                    Dim FinalDude() As String = LineItem.Split(ControlChars.Tab)
                    Dim newItem As ListViewItem = ListView1.Items.Add(FinalDude(0))
                    newItem.Name = FinalDude(0)
                    newItem.SubItems.Add(FinalDude(1))
 
                End If
            Next
        Next

[BrendanDavis]

I'd use InStr to find the section title first, before splitting ANYTHING. Otherwise, if your document is large in size and has several sections, using split without first narrowing down your search will bog your code down a bit.

Use InStr to find the title of the section, then use Mid to narrow it down to the point where that section begins, then use InStr and Mid again to find the subsection("title" in your case, as you said, correct?), and THEN use Split(thestring, """")(3) to find what is in the second set of quotations beginning from the point of "title".

[BrendanDavis]

Dim str, sect, subsect As String
 
sect = "SECTION_NAME2" 'Section you are looking for
subsect = """title""" 'Subitem you are looking to find
str = Split(Mid(Mid(Text1.Text, InStr(Text1.Text, sect)), _
InStr(Mid(Text1.Text, InStr(Text1.Text, sect)), subsect)), """")(3)
 
Debug.Print str 'Returns "Hellow World!

..for example. Text1.Text represents a textbox with the following text(as you provided, modified to duplicate the section accordingly):

	"SECTION_NAME1"
	{
		"ControlName"	"Button"
		"fieldName"	"ButtonItem1"
		"xpos"		"489"
		"ypos"		"400"
		"zpos"		"290"
		"wide"		"400"
		"tall"		"180"
		"autoResize"	"0"
		"pinCorner"	"0"
		"visible"		"1"
		"enabled"		"1"
		"tabPosition"	"0"
		"settitlebarvisible"	"1"
		"title"	"Hellow World!"
		"sizable"	"0"
	}

	"SECTION_NAME2"
	{
		"ControlName"	"Button"
		"fieldName"	"ButtonItem1"
		"xpos"		"489"
		"ypos"		"400"
		"zpos"		"290"
		"wide"		"400"
		"tall"		"180"
		"autoResize"	"0"
		"pinCorner"	"0"
		"visible"		"1"
		"enabled"		"1"
		"tabPosition"	"0"
		"settitlebarvisible"	"1"
		"title"	"Hellow World!"
		"sizable"	"0"
	}

[gigemboy]

An example of displaying each section of data using Regex is below. Using the pasted text above, the below code should display each respective section in a messagebox...

Dim MyText As String = IO.File.ReadAllText("c:\test.txt") 'file with pasted text
        Dim RegexPattern As String = """\w*?"".*?\{.*?\}"
        Dim MyMatches As System.Text.RegularExpressions.MatchCollection = _
            System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Matches( _
            MyText, RegexPattern, System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.Singleline)
        For Each Match As System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match In MyMatches
            MessageBox.Show(Match.Value)
        Next

[tylerm]

Okay, I'm starting to get this down now. I guess next is how to specify the section and propertyname and then set the property value.

For example, specifying:

ResourceParser.Property_SetValue(resData.text, "VGUI_Display", "title", "DUDE")

This would set the value from "Hello World!" to "DUDE" inside the section "VGUI_Display" for the title property.

[tylerm]

An example of displaying each section of data using Regex is below. Using the pasted text above, the below code should display each respective section in a messagebox...

Dim MyText As String = IO.File.ReadAllText("c:\test.txt") 'file with pasted text
        Dim RegexPattern As String = """\w*?"".*?\{.*?\}"
        Dim MyMatches As System.Text.RegularExpressions.MatchCollection = _
            System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Matches( _
            MyText, RegexPattern, System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.Singleline)
        For Each Match As System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match In MyMatches
            MessageBox.Show(Match.Value)
        Next

How could I refine that so Match.Value would only output the name of the section, so instead of:

	"vgui_hello"
	{
		"ControlName"		"Frame"
		"fieldName"		"$PROJECT_NAME$"
		"xpos"		"489"
		"ypos"		"400"
		"zpos"		"290"
		"wide"		"400"
		"tall"		"180"
		"autoResize"		"0"
		"pinCorner"		"0"
		"visible"		"1"
		"enabled"		"1"
		"tabPosition"		"0"
		"settitlebarvisible"		"1"
		"title"		"Hellow World!"
		"sizable"		"0"
	}

It would output: vgui_hello

Thanks

[gigemboy]

The below code is a sample of how to do it. Notice the regex pattern, it is modified to allow each part of the pattern to be put in a named group, which you can access from the match result to get that part of the info. Each match now has a group for the section name, and a group for the section body, and each group of each section is displayed in a messagebox...

Dim MyText As String = IO.File.ReadAllText("c:\test.txt") 'file with pasted text
        Dim RegexPattern As String = """(?<SectionName>\w*?)""(?<SectionBody>.*?\{.*?\})"
        Dim MyMatches As System.Text.RegularExpressions.MatchCollection = _
            System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Matches( _
            MyText, RegexPattern, System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.Singleline)
        For Each Match As System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match In MyMatches
            MessageBox.Show(Match.Groups("SectionName").Value)
            MessageBox.Show(Match.Groups("SectionBody").Value)
        Next

[tylerm]

Thank you so much Gigemboy!

I just have one last question and I think all my problems are solved.

How about beign able to get PropertyName and PropertyValue from inside the SectionBody?

Again, thank you so much this problem has been stumping me since Christmas.

[gigemboy]

I am not too sure, I tried to mess with it but ran into a snag and ran out of time to work on it. I tried to set up groups for property name and property value, and it still matches the full text with the modified pattern, however I cannot pull any values for the two named property groups and I am not too sure why. I believe it has to do something with the multiple subgroups that are in the pattern, since there are multiple property name/values. I don't think regex knows how to deal with it, so it does nothing for those two groups, yet still captures the correct text. If anyone else wants to take a stab at it, feel free. Test code is below with the modified pattern...

Dim MyText As String = IO.File.ReadAllText("c:\test.txt") 'file with pasted text
        Dim RegexPattern As String = """(?<SectionName>\w*?)"".*?\{.*?(""(?<PropertyName>.*?)"".*?""(?<PropertyValue>.*?)"")*.*?\}"
        Dim MyMatches As System.Text.RegularExpressions.MatchCollection = _
            System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Matches( _
            MyText, RegexPattern, System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.Singleline)
        For Each Match As System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match In MyMatches
            For I As Integer = 0 To Match.Groups.Count - 1
                Console.WriteLine(Match.Captures.Count.ToString & " capture(s)")
                Console.WriteLine(Match.Groups(I).Value & "- Value" & Environment.NewLine & "end line" & Environment.NewLine)
            Next
        Next