Regular Expressions 101

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23

Get path from any text

Created·2023-01-31 14:38
Updated·2023-07-23 20:17
Type·Match
Flavor·PCRE2 (PHP)
Recommended·
Get path (windows style) from any type of text (error message, e-mail corps ...), quoted or not. THIS IS THE SINGLE LINE VERSION ! If you want understand how it work or edit it, go https://regex101.com/r/7o2fyy Relative path are not supported The goal is to catch what "Look like" a path. See the limitations UNC path and prefix path like //./], [//?/] or [//./UNC/] are allowed some url path like [file:///C:/] or [file://] are allowed Catch path quoted with ["] and [']. But these quotes are include with the catch Quoted path is not concerned by limitations Limitations : (only unquoted path) [dot] and [space] is allowed, but not in a row [dot+space] or [space+dot at end of file name isn't catched INSIDE A NAME FILE (or last directory if it is a path to a directory) : [comma] is not supported (it stop the catch) after a first [dot], any [space] stop the catch after a [space], catch is stoped if next character is not a [letter], [digit] or [-] so, double [space] stop the catch Compatibility compatible PCRE, PCRE2 AutoHotkey : don't forget to escape "%" in "`%" /!\ Powershell and .Net /!\\ : this regex need some modification to be interpreted by powershell. You have to replace each (?&CapturGroupName) by \k. Use this powershell code to do this replacement : ` $powershellRegex = @' [Put here the regex to replace (?&CapturGroupName) with \k] '@ -replace '\(\?&(\w+)\)', '\k' ` This example code must return : [Put here the regex to replace \k with \k]
Submitted by nitrateag

Community Library Entry

1

Regular ExpressionOpen Workspace

@"
(?=\S)(?<text>(?<comment>(?<open>[#;]+)(?:[^\S\r\n]*)(?<value>.*))|(?<section>(?<open>\[)(?:\s*)(?<value>[^\]]*\S+)(?:[^\S\r\n]*)(?<close>\]))|(?<entry>(?<key>[^=:\r\n\[\]]*\S)(?:[^\S\r\n]*)(?<delimiter>:|=)(?:\s*(?<value>\{(?:(?>(?:""(?:\\.|[^""])*""|//[^\r\n]*|/\*[\s\S]*?\*/|[^{}""/]+|/(?![/*])))|(?<o>\{)|(?<-o>\}))*(?(o)(?!))\})|((?:[^\S\r\n]*)(?<value>[^#;\r\n]*))))|(?<undefined>.+))(?<=\S)|(?<linebreaker>\r\n|\n)|(?<whitespace>(?>[^\S\r\n]+))
"
g

Description
Created·2024-04-03 08:20
Updated·2026-08-01 19:08
Type·Match
Flavor·.NET 10.0 (C#)

INI Parser

A .NET regular expression for tokenizing INI-style configuration files.

Features

Supports:

  • Sections: [Section]
  • Key-value entries: key=value and key:value
  • Comments: # comment and ; comment
  • Whitespace and line breaks
  • Multiline object blocks using { ... }
  • Nested braces inside object blocks
  • C-style comments inside object blocks

Captured groups

GroupDescription
textAny meaningful text token
commentComment line
openOpening symbol (#, ;, [)
closeClosing symbol (])
sectionSection declaration
entryKey-value entry
keyEntry key
delimiterKey-value separator (= or :)
valueSection name, comment text, or entry value
undefinedUnknown text
linebreakerLine ending
whitespaceSpaces and tabs

Multiline values

Values wrapped in { } are treated as a single block:

Json =
{
    "name": "example",
    "items": [
        1,
        2
    ]
}

Inside blocks:

  • strings are ignored when counting braces;
  • // comments are ignored;
  • /* comments */ are ignored;
  • nested {} are supported.

Limitations

This regex performs structural parsing only.

It does not validate:

  • JSON syntax;
  • duplicate keys;
  • value types;
  • application-specific rules.

Use a dedicated parser after tokenization if full validation is required.

Compatibility

Designed for:

  • .NET System.Text.RegularExpressions
  • balancing groups support

Not compatible with regex engines without balancing group support.

Submitted by Pavel Bashkardin
Open Workspace