[RESOLVED] Regexp for 2 values

[graham23s]

Hi Guys,

For the past 2 days i have been trying to come up with a simple solution for this problem, but i have turned up nothing so far.

basically i have a few fields in some html named:

<input type="hidden" name="name1" value="value1">
<input type="hidden" name="name2" value="value2">
<input type="hidden" name="name3" value="value3">

i can grab the name fields fine and also store them in an .xml file, but when i try to get the value fields and place them like:

<field>name1}{value1</field>

I'm getting errors, basically because the name fields have 13 and the value fields have 14, so the numbers don't match up.

my code below is a bit clumsy, i have deleted/undeleted so much:

'// This is the pattern we want to match the hidden fields
        Dim fieldSource As New Regex("(?<=""hidden"" name="").*?(?="")", _
                     RegexOptions.IgnoreCase Or RegexOptions.Singleline)
 
        '// [Hidden Name Fields Count] This hold all the matches returned
        Dim classMatches As MatchCollection = fieldSource.Matches(HTML)
 
        '// Return the number of hidden fields
        Dim numHiddenreFields As Integer = classMatches.Count
 
        '// File location
        Dim file As String = "Debug/xForm(4)-(file).xml"
 
        '// The XmlTextWriter that will build the XML file
        Dim myX As New Xml.XmlTextWriter(file, System.Text.Encoding.UTF8)
 
        '// Add a few extra options to the XML
        With myX
            .Formatting = Formatting.Indented
            .Indentation = 3
 
            '// Write an element (this one is the root)
            myX.WriteStartDocument()
            myX.WriteStartElement("hiddenfileFields")
 
            myX.WriteStartElement("hiddenfileChallenge")
            myX.WriteStartElement("hiddenfileChallengeField")
            myX.WriteValue(ChallengeField)
            myX.WriteEndElement()
            myX.WriteEndElement()
 
            '// Use a for loop to go through tha array values
            For Z As Integer = 0 To numHiddenreFields - 1
 
                '1)
                '// Set up the regular expression
                Dim hiddenNames As New Regex("(?<=""hidden"" name="").*?(?="")", _
                                     RegexOptions.IgnoreCase Or RegexOptions.Singleline)
 
                '// This is an array of the files we don't want  
                Dim sourceNames As MatchCollection = hiddenNames.Matches(HTML)
 
 
                ' ''2)
                ' ''// Set up the regular expression
                'Dim hiddenValues As New Regex("(?<=<input type=""hidden"" name=""" & sourceNames(Z).ToString & """ value="").*?(?="")", _
                '                     RegexOptions.IgnoreCase Or RegexOptions.Singleline)
 
                ''// Put all the values in a collection
                'Dim sourceValues As MatchCollection = hiddenValues.Matches(HTML)
 
                'For Each sourceValues2 As Match In sourceValues
                '    MessageBox.Show(sourceValues2.ToString)
                'Next
 
                '// Write the values to the xml file
                myX.WriteStartElement("reFields" & (Z))
                myX.WriteValue(sourceNames(Z).ToString)
                myX.WriteEndElement()
 
            Next
 
            '// Close up and end document
            myX.WriteEndDocument()
            myX.Close()
 
        End With

What i am thinking now, is if there was a way to get the "name" and "value" field with the 1 regular expression, instead of having to do the 2, would that be possible? or is there an easier way i could have done this?

my brain aches from trying to work this out lol

thanks for any help guys

Graham

[gep13]

Hey,

Are you familiar with using Groups within your Regular Expressions?

You should be able to create groups, one for the name and one for the value, and reference those within your matches.

You can find some more information on that here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...ollection.aspx

I hope that helps!!

Gary

[BlayzeX]

Well it may not be pretty, but this is what I came up with on a whim.. i tried the WAY SHORTER version of strbetween floating around, but came up with errors for some reason, so I made my own LONGER version that seems to GRAB what you need it too..

Function getinfo(ByVal Filter, ByVal SourceText)
        Dim info = Nothing

        Dim rx As New System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex(Filter)

        Dim m As Match

        For Each m In rx.Matches(SourceText)

            info = info & _
            "<field>" & _
            strbetween(m.ToString, "", "name=" & Chr(34), Chr(34)) & _
            "}{" & _
            strbetween(m.ToString, "", "value=" & Chr(34), Chr(34)) & _
            "</field>" & vbCrLf

        Next
        getinfo = info

    End Function
    Public Function strbetween(ByVal SearchText As String, ByVal findfirst As String, ByVal StartText As String, ByVal EndText As String)
        On Error GoTo 3
        Dim s
        Dim a
        Dim b
        Dim c
        Dim d
        s = InStr(1, SearchText, findfirst)
        If s = 0 Then
            strbetween = findfirst & " Not Found"
        End If

        a = InStr(s, SearchText, StartText)
        If a = 0 Then
            strbetween = StartText & " Not Found"
            GoTo 4
        Else
            a = a + Len(StartText)
        End If
        b = InStr(a, SearchText, EndText)
        If b = 0 Then
            strbetween = EndText & " Not Found"
            GoTo 4
        End If
        c = b - a
        d = Mid(SearchText, a, c)
        strbetween = d
        GoTo 4
3:      strbetween = "An error occured"
4:
    End Function

Try this usage first to see if it grabs the information like you need it...

TextBox2.Text = getinfo("<input type=.*name=.*", TextBox1.Text)

Textbox1.text = your html page
textbox2.text = NOTHING until you use the above code..

if that grabs it like you like it see if you can save that info to the xml

[graham23s]

Hi Guys, Thanks a ton for the help! i have been at this for a few days lol, what i came up with was this:

Grab the whole string which looks like:

<input type="hidden" name="name1" value="value1">

Grab this part using regex:

<input type="hidden" name="name1" value="value1">

Then replace: " value=" this bit with a + sign, split the values into (0) and (1) then use them.

Thanks BlayzeX, that looks and works perfect, and gave me a few programming tips thanks mate

looking into groups aswell Gary, thanks to mate.

cheers

Graham

[gep13]

Hey,

I just had a quick look at the code that was posted by BlayzeX and I have a concern.

I am by no means an expert in VB, but as far as I was aware, On Error GoTo, is certainly not a recommended approach anymore, and should be avoided.

Much better exception handling can be done using Try/Catch.

Gary