Regular expression to extract string from urls - regex

I need to extract a string from an URL. Here are some examples:
Input: https://www.example.net/eur_en/bas-026-009-basic-baby-hat-beige.html – Output: bas-026-009
Input: https://www.example.net/eur_en/aw18-245-b86-big-cherries-snow-jacket-plum-red.html – Output: aw18-245-b86
Input: https://www.example.net/eur_en/ss20-028-e70-hearts-tee-off-white-yellow.html – Output: ss20-028-e70
I want to be able to extract the string that goes from the first character after the "/eur_en/" until the third dash. Can someone help me? Thanks

You're looking for regexp: \/eur_en\/([^-]+-[^-]+-[^-]+)
Play & test it at regex101: https://regex101.com/r/RvGROG/1
You need something like this:
const urls = [
"https://www.example.net/eur_en/bas-026-009-basic-baby-hat-beige.html",
"https://www.example.net/eur_en/aw18-245-b86-big-cherries-snow-jacket-plum-red.html",
"https://www.example.net/eur_en/ss20-028-e70-hearts-tee-off-white-yellow.html",
]
const rg = new RegExp(`\/eur_en\/([^-]+-[^-]+-[^-]+)`)
const strs = urls.map(url => url.match(rg)[1])
console.log(strs)
// Output:
// [
// "bas-026-009",
// "aw18-245-b86",
// "ss20-028-e70"
// ]
Of course, it's a simple example. In real cases don't forget to check that .match returned array with length greater than 1.
So, the first element is full captured string and the second (as third and next) it's a sub-strings, which is captured by parentheses.
We can improve and complicate our regex like so:
\/((?:[^-\/]+-){2}[^-\/]+)
It'll allow us to not to use a specific anchor /eur_en/ and control the number of dash divided parts.

The expression you're looking for is the following:
/(?<=eur_en\/)[^-]*-[^-]*-[^-]*/
Here is how it works:
(?<=eur_en\/): will look behind for eur_env/ but will not use it in the output
[^-]*: it will match any character that is not a dash. So it will get everything up to the first dash (not including the dash)
[^-]*: it will match any character that is not a dash. So it will get everything up to the second dash (not including the dash)
[^-]*: it will match any character that is not a dash. So it will get everything up to the third dash (not including the dash).

/(?<=\/eur_en\/)\w+-\w+-\w+/g
Tolkens
Description
(?<=\/eur_en\/)
Look behind - If /eur_en/ is found, match whatever proceeds it.
\w+-\w+-\w+
One or more Word character = [A-Za-z0-9] and a literal hyphen three consecutive times.
Review: https://regex101.com/r/Ge0zA3/1

Related

Substitute every character after a certain position with a regex

I'm trying to use a regex replace each character after a given position (say, 3) with a placeholder character, for an arbitrary-length string (the output length should be the same as that of the input). I think a lookahead (lookbehind?) can do it, but I can't get it to work.
What I have right now is:
regex: /.(?=.{0,2}$)/
input string: 'hello there'
replace string: '_'
current output: 'hello th___' (last 3 substituted)
The output I'm looking for would be 'hel________' (everything but the first 3 substituted).
I'm doing this in Typescript, to replace some old javascript that is using ugly split/concatenate logic. However, I know how to make the regex calls, so the answer should be pretty language agnostic.
If you know the string is longer than given position n, the start-part can be optionally captured
(^.{3})?.
and replaced with e.g. $1_ (capture of first group and _). Won't work if string length is <= n.
See this demo at regex101
Another option is to use a lookehind as far as supported to check if preceded by n characters.
(?<=.{3}).
See other demo at regex101 (replace just with underscore) - String length does not matter here.
To mention in PHP/PCRE the start-part could simply be skipped like this: ^.{1,3}(*SKIP)(*F)|.

Python Regex - How to extract the third portion?

My input is of this format: (xxx)yyyy(zz)(eee)fff where {x,y,z,e,f} are all numbers. But fff is optional though.
Input: x = (123)4567(89)(660)
Expected output: Only the eeepart i.e. the number inside 3rd "()" i.e. 660 in my example.
I am able to achieve this so far:
re.search("\((\d*)\)", x).group()
Output: (123)
Expected: (660)
I am surely missing something fundamental. Please advise.
Edit 1: Just added fff to the input data format.
You could find all those matches that have round braces (), and print the third match with findall
import re
n = "(123)4567(89)(660)999"
r = re.findall("\(\d*\)", n)
print(r[2])
Output:
(660)
The (eee) part is identical to the (xxx) part in your regex. If you don't provide an anchor, or some sequencing requirement, then an unanchored search will match the first thing it finds, which is (xxx) in your case.
If you know the (eee) always appears at the end of the string, you could append an "at-end" anchor ($) to force the match at the end. Or perhaps you could append a following character, like a space or comma or something.
Otherwise, you might do well to match the other parts of the pattern and not capture them:
pattern = r'[0-9()]{13}\((\d{3})\)'
If you want to get the third group of numbers in brackets, you need to skip the first two groups which you can do with a repeating non-capturing group which looks for a set of digits enclosed in () followed by some number of non ( characters:
x = '(123)4567(89)(660)'
print(re.search("(?:\(\d+\)[^(]*){2}(\(\d+\))", x).group(1))
Output:
(660)
Demo on rextester

Regex: Separate a string of characters with a non-consistent pattern (Oracle) (POSIX ERE)

EDIT: This question pertains to Oracle implementation of regex (POSIX ERE) which does not support 'lookaheads'
I need to separate a string of characters with a comma, however, the pattern is not consistent and I am not sure if this can be accomplished with Regex.
Corpus: 1710ABCD.131711ABCD.431711ABCD.41711ABCD.4041711ABCD.25
The pattern is basically 4 digits, followed by 4 characters, followed by a dot, followed by 1,2, or 3 digits! To make the string above clear, this is how it looks like separated by a space 1710ABCD.13 1711ABCD.43 1711ABCD.4 1711ABCD.404 1711ABCD.25
So the output of a replace operation should look like this:
1710ABCD.13,1711ABCD.43,1711ABCD.4,1711ABCD.404,1711ABCD.25
I was able to match the pattern using this regex:
(\d{4}\w{4}\.\d{1,3})
It does insert a comma but after the third digit beyond the dot (wrong, should have been after the second digit), but I cannot get it to do it in the right position and globally.
Here is a link to a fiddle
https://regex101.com/r/qQ2dE4/329
All you need is a lookahead at the end of the regular expression, so that the greedy \d{1,3} backtracks until it's followed by 4 digits (indicating the start of the next substring):
(\d{4}\w{4}\.\d{1,3})(?=\d{4})
^^^^^^^^^
https://regex101.com/r/qQ2dE4/330
To expand on #CertainPerformance's answer, if you want to be able to match the last token, you can use an alternative match of $:
(\d{4}\w{4}\.\d{1,3})(?=\d{4}|$)
Demo: https://regex101.com/r/qQ2dE4/331
EDIT: Since you now mentioned in the comment that you're using Oracle's implementation, you can simply do:
regexp_replace(corpus, '(\d{1,3})(\d{4})', '\1,\2')
to get your desired output:
1710ABCD.13,1711ABCD.43,1711ABCD.4,1711ABCD.404,1711ABCD.25
Demo: https://regex101.com/r/qQ2dE4/333
In order to continue finding matches after the first one you must use the global flag /g. The pattern is very tricky but it's feasible if you reverse the string.
Demo
var str = `1710ABCD.131711ABCD.431711ABCD.41711ABCD.4041711ABCD.25`;
// Reverse String
var rts = str.split("").reverse().join("");
// Do a reverse version of RegEx
/*In order to continue searching after the first match,
use the `g`lobal flag*/
var rgx = /(\d{1,3}\.\w{4}\d{4})/g;
// Replace on reversed String with a reversed substitution
var res = rts.replace(rgx, ` ,$1`);
// Revert the result back to normal direction
var ser = res.split("").reverse().join("");
console.log(ser);

Regex match between two tags or else match everything

I have a list of email addresses which take various forms:
john#smith.com
Angie <angie#aol.com>
"Mark Jones" <mark#jones.com>
I'm trying to cut only the email portion from each. Ex: I only want the angie#aol.com from the second item in the list. In other words, I want to match everything between < and > or match everything if it doesn't exist.
I know this can be done in 2 steps:
Capture on (?<=\<)(.*)(?=\>).
If there is no match, use the entire text.
But now I'm wondering: Can both steps be reduced into one simple regular expression?
What about:
(?<=\<).*(?=\>)|^[^<]*$
^[^>]*$ will match the entire string, but only if it doesn't contain a <. And that's OR'ed (|) with what you had.
Explanation:
^ - start of string
[^<] - not-< character
[^<]* - zero or more not-< characters
$ - end of string
You're after an exclusive or operator. Have a look here.
(\<.+\#.+\..+\>) matches those email addresses in side <> only...
(\<.+\#.+\..+\>)|(.+) matches everything instead of matching the first condition in the OR then skipping the second.
Depending on what language you are using to implement this regex, you might be able to use an inbuilt exclusive or operator. Otherwise, you might need to put a bit of logic in there to use the string if no matches are found. E.g. (pseudo type code):
string = 'your data above';
if( regex_finds_match ( '(\<.+\#.+\..+\>)', string ) ) {
// found match, use the match
str_to_use = regex_match(es);
} else {
// didn't find a match:
str_to_use = string;
}
It is possible, but your current logic is probably simpler. Here is what I came up with, email address will always be in the first capturing group:
^(?:.*<|)(.*?)(?:>|$)
Example: http://rubular.com/r/8tKHaYYY4T

Regex to remove characters up to a certain point in a string

How do I use regex to convert
11111aA$xx1111xxdj$%%`
to
aA$xx1111xxdj$%%
So, in other words, I want to remove (or match) the FIRST grouping of 1's.
Depending on the language, you should have a way to replace a string by regex. In Java, you can do it like this:
String s = "11111aA$xx1111xxdj$%%";
String res = s.replaceAll("^1+", "");
The ^ "anchor" indicates that the beginning of the input must be matched. The 1+ means a sequence of one or more 1 characters.
Here is a link to ideone with this running program.
The same program in C#:
var rx = new Regex("^1+");
var s = "11111aA$xx1111xxdj$%%";
var res = rx.Replace(s, "");
Console.WriteLine(res);
(link to ideone)
In general, if you would like to make a match of anything only at the beginning of a string, add a ^ prefix to your expression; similarly, adding a $ at the end makes the match accept only strings at the end of your input.
If this is the beginning, you can use this:
^[1]*
As far as replacing, it depends on the language. In powershell, I would do this:
[regex]::Replace("11111aA$xx1111xxdj$%%","^[1]*","")
This will return:
aA$xx1111xxdj$%%
If you only want to replace consecutive "1"s at the beginning of the string, replace the following with an empty string:
^1+
If the consecutive "1"s won't necessarily be the first characters in the string (but you still only want to replace one group), replace the following with the contents of the first capture group (usually \1 or $1):
1+(.*)
Note that this is only necessary if you only have a "replace all" capability available to you, but most regex implementations also provide a way to replace only one instance of a match, in which case you could just replace 1+ with an empty string.
I'm not sure but you can try this
[^1](\w*\d*\W)* - match all as a single group except starting "1"(n) symbols
In Javascript
var str = '11111aA$xx1111xxdj$%%';
var patt = /^1+/g;
str = str.replace(patt,"");