Need help with Regular Expression

[ScottInTexas]

I have had a hard time finding a site that explained the construction of a regular expression. But they all seem to copy each other and leave "Capture Group" vague. So this is a possible string from which I want to extract the words. I will type the tabs as (tab) so you know where they are. I want to capture the word groups between tabs. Some groups may contain numbers also.

"The Filename(tab)Some Multiplier 1(tab)Some Amount(tab)name1(tab)name2(tab)or name(tab)another N-1234"

I tried this pattern, \t?(\b\w*\b\s\b\w*\b)\t, and got;

Match 1 = The Filename (this is correct)
Match 2 = Multiplier 1 (it left out the "Some")
Match 3 = Some Amount (this is correct)
Match 4 = name1 name2 (but there is a tab character between the two)
Match 5 = or name (this is correct)

completely blew off the name N-1234

It's close but I don't know how to finish it.

Thanks for your help.

 

[shg]

Why not just use Split with tab as the separator?

 

[ScottInTexas]

That's what I did. But I wanted to understand Reg expressions better for future use.

 

[pgc01]

Hi

Try this code:

Sub SpitAtTab()
Dim regex As Object, regexMatches As Object
Dim s As String, lMatch As Long

s  = "The Filename" & vbTab & "Some Multiplier 1" & vbTab  & "Some Amount" & vbTab & "name1" & vbTab & "name2"  & vbTab & "or name" & vbTab & "another N-1234"

Set regex = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
With regex
    .Pattern = ".+?(?=\t)"
    .Global = True
    Set regexMatches = .Execute(s & vbTab)
End With

' display matches
For lMatch = 0 To regexMatches.Count - 1
     MsgBox "Match " & (lMatch + 1) & ": " & regexMatches(lMatch)
Next lMatch

End Sub

 

[pgc01]

Hi

Sorry, the code I posted displays the results OK but will sometimes include the tab, which you don't want.

Replace the pattern with

 .Pattern = "[^\t]+"

to get any sequence of characters between 2 tabs