How to select section in regular expression in linux commands - regex

I have these lines that every line begin a word then equal and several sentence so I like select every section. For example:
delete = \account
user\
admin
admin right is good.
add = \
nothing
no out
input output is not good
edit = permission
bob
admin
alice killed bob!!!
I want to select a section for example:
add = \
nothing
no out
input output is not good
I like do it with regular expression.

Your question is a bit vague but you could try the following ...
/\s*(\w+) = ([^=]*\n)*/m
... subject to the requirement that the last section is terminated with \n.
this works by:
'\s*' matching some optional leading whitespace
'(\w+)' capturing the name of the section
' = ' matches the space equals space separator
'([^=]*\n)' it then captures a string that does not include an equals and ends with a newline
'*' and it does that last bit multiple times
The m flag is then required to set multi-line.
See the following to quickly see the groups that are output for each match ...
https://regex101.com/r/oDKSy9/1
(NOTE: The g flag will probably not be required depending on how you use the regex.)

Solution by OP.
I find this solution:
csplit -k fileName '/.*=/' '{*}'
Thanks #haggisandchips

Related

RegEx to format Wikipedia's infoboxes code [SOLVED]

I am a contributor to Wikipedia and I would like to make a script with AutoHotKey that could format the wikicode of infoboxes and other similar templates.
Infoboxes are templates that displays a box on the side of articles and shows the values of the parameters entered (they are numerous and they differ in number, lenght and type of characters used depending on the infobox).
Parameters are always preceded by a pipe (|) and end with an equal sign (=). On rare occasions, multiple parameters can be put on the same line, but I can sort this manually before running the script.
A typical infobox will be like this:
{{Infobox XYZ
| first parameter = foo
| second_parameter =
| 3rd parameter = bar
| 4th = bazzzzz
| 5th =
| etc. =
}}
But sometime, (lazy) contributors put them like this:
{{Infobox XYZ
|first parameter=foo
|second_parameter=
|3rd parameter=bar
|4th=bazzzzz
|5th=
|etc.=
}}
Which isn't very easy to read and modify.
I would like to know if it is possible to make a regex (or a serie of regexes) that would transform the second example into the first.
The lines should start with a space, then a pipe, then another space, then the parameter name, then any number of spaces (to match the other lines lenght), then an equal sign, then another space, and if present, the parameter value.
I try some things using multiple capturing groups, but I'm going nowhere... (I'm even ashamed to show my tries as they really don't work).
Would someone have an idea on how to make it work?
Thank you for your time.
The lines should start with a space, then a pipe, then another space, then the parameter name, then a space, then an equal sign, then another space, and if present, the parameter value.
First the selection, it's relatively trivial:
^\s*\|\s*([^=]*?)\s*=(.*)$
Then the replacement, literally your description of what you want (note the space at the beginning):
| $1 = $2
See it in action here.
#Blindy:
The best code I have found so far is the following : https://regex101.com/r/GunrUg/1
The problem is it doesn't align the equal signs vertically...
I got an answer on AutoHotKey forums:
^i::
out := ""
Send, ^x
regex := "O)\s*\|\s*(.*?)\s*=\s*(.*)", width := 1
Loop, Parse, Clipboard, `n, `r
If RegExMatch(A_LoopField, regex, _)
width := Max(width, StrLen(_[1]))
Loop, Parse, Clipboard, `n, `r
If RegExMatch(A_LoopField, regex, _)
out .= Format(" | {:-" width "} = {2}", _[1],_[2]) "`n"
else
out .= A_LoopField "`n"
Clipboard := out
Send, ^v
Return
With this script, pressing Ctrl+i formats the infobox code just right (I guess a simple regex isn't enough to do the job).

Remove leading 0 in String with letters and digits

I have a comma separated file where I need to change the first column removing leading zeroes in string. Text file is as below
ABC-0001,ab,0001
ABC-0010,bc,0010
I need to get the data as under
ABC-1,ab,0001
ABC-10,bc,0010
I can do a command line replace which i tried as below:
sed 's/ABC-0*[1-9]/ABC-[1-9]/g' file
I ended up getting output:
ABC-[1-9],ab,0001
ABC-[1-9]0,ac,0010
Can you please tell me what I am missing in here.
Alternately I also tried to apply formatting in the SQL that generates this file as below:
select regexp_replace(key,'((0+)|1-9|0+)','(1-9|0+)') from file where key in ('ABC-0001','ABC-0010')
which gives output as
ABC-(1-9|0+)1
ABC-(1-9|0+)1(1-9|0+)
Help on either of solution will be very helpful!
Try this :
sed -E 's/ABC-0*([1-9])/ABC-\1/g' file
------ --
| |
capturing group |
captured group
To do it in the query using Oracle, where the key value with the zeroes you want to remove is in a column called "key" in a table called "file", would look like this:
select regexp_replace(key, '(-)(0+)(.*)', '\1\3')
from file;
You need to capture the dash as it is "consumed" by the regex as it is matched. Followed by the second group of one or more 0's, followed by the rest of the field. Replace with captured groups 1 and 3, leaving the 0's (if any) between out.

Regex for IBAN allowing for white spaces AND checking for exact length

I need to check an input field for a German IBAN. The user should be allowed to leave in white spaces and input should be validated to have a starting DE and then exact 20 characters numbers and letters.
Without the white space allowance, I tried
^[DE]{2}([0-9a-zA-Z]{20})$
but I cannot find where and how I can add "white spaces anywhere allowed.
This should be simple, but I simply cannot find a solution.
Thanks for help!
Because you should use the right tool for the right task: you should not rely on regexps to validate IBAN numbers, but instead use the IBAN checksum algorithm to check the whole code is actually correct, making any regexp superfluous and redundant. i.e.: remove all spaces, rearrange the code, convert to integers, and compute remainder, here it's best explained.
Though, there am I trying to answer your question, for the fun of it:
what about:
^DE([0-9a-zA-Z]\s?){20}$
which only difference is allowing a whitespace (or not) after each occurence of a alphanumeric character.
here is the visualization:
edit: for the OP's information, the only difference is that this regexp, from #ulugbex-umirov: (?:\s*[0-9a-zA-Z]\s*) does a lookahead check to see if there's a space between the iso country code and the checksum (which only made of numerical digits), which I do not support on purpose.
And actually to support a correct IBAN syntax, which is formed of groups of 4 characters, as the wikipedia page says:
^DE\d{2}\s?([0-9a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){4}[0-9a-zA-Z]{2}$
example
If your UI is in Javascript, you can use that library for doing IBAN validation:
<script src="iban.js"></script>
<script>
// the API is now accessible from the window.IBAN global object
IBAN.isValid('hello world'); // false
IBAN.isValid('BE68539007547034'); // true
</script>
so you know this is a valid IBAN, and can validate it before the data is ever even sent to the backend. Simpler, lighter and more elegant… Why do something else?
Here is a list of IBANs from 70 Countries. I generated it with a python script i wrote based on this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bank_Account_Number
AL[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){2}([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){4}\s?
AD[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){2}([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){3}\s?
AT[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){4}\s?
AZ[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){5}\s?
BH[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){3}([a-zA-Z0-9]{2})\s?
BY[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){5}\s?
BE[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){3}\s?
BA[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){4}\s?
BR[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){5}([0-9]{3})([a-zA-Z]{1}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{1})\s?
BG[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{2})([a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){1}([a-zA-Z0-9]{2})\s?
CR[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){4}([0-9]{2})\s?
HR[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){4}([0-9]{1})\s?
CY[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){2}([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){4}\s?
CZ[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){5}\s?
DK[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){3}([0-9]{2})\s?
DO[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){5}\s?
TL[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){4}([0-9]{3})\s?
EE[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){4}\s?
FO[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){3}([0-9]{2})\s?
FI[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){3}([0-9]{2})\s?
FR[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){2}([0-9]{2})([a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){2}([a-zA-Z0-9]{1})([0-9]{2})\s?
GE[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z0-9]{2})([0-9]{2}\s?)([0-9]{4}\s?){3}([0-9]{2})\s?
DE[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){4}([0-9]{2})\s?
GI[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){3}([a-zA-Z0-9]{3})\s?
GR[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{3})([a-zA-Z0-9]{1}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){3}([a-zA-Z0-9]{3})\s?
GL[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){3}([0-9]{2})\s?
GT[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){1}([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){5}\s?
HU[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){6}\s?
IS[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){5}([0-9]{2})\s?
IE[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){3}([0-9]{2})\s?
IL[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){4}([0-9]{3})\s?
IT[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{1})([0-9]{3}\s?)([0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{3})([a-zA-Z0-9]{1}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){2}([a-zA-Z0-9]{3})\s?
JO[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){5}([0-9]{2})\s?
KZ[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){3}([0-9]{1})([a-zA-Z0-9]{3}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){2}([a-zA-Z0-9]{2})\s?
XK[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){2}([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2}\s?)\s?
KW[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){5}([a-zA-Z0-9]{2})\s?
LV[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){3}([a-zA-Z0-9]{1})\s?
LB[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){1}([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){5}\s?
LI[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{1})([a-zA-Z0-9]{3}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){2}([a-zA-Z0-9]{1})\s?
LT[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){4}\s?
LU[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{3})([a-zA-Z0-9]{1}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){3}\s?
MK[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{3})([a-zA-Z0-9]{1}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){2}([a-zA-Z0-9]{1})([0-9]{2})\s?
MT[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{1})([a-zA-Z0-9]{3}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){3}([a-zA-Z0-9]{3})\s?
MR[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){5}([0-9]{3})\s?
MU[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){4}([0-9]{3})([a-zA-Z]{1}\s?)([a-zA-Z]{2})\s?
MC[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){2}([0-9]{2})([a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){2}([a-zA-Z0-9]{1})([0-9]{2})\s?
MD[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z0-9]{2})([a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){4}\s?
ME[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){4}([0-9]{2})\s?
NL[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){2}([0-9]{2})\s?
NO[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){2}([0-9]{3})\s?
PK[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){4}\s?
PS[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){5}([0-9]{1})\s?
PL[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){6}\s?
PT[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){5}([0-9]{1})\s?
QA[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){5}([a-zA-Z0-9]{1})\s?
RO[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){4}\s?
SM[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{1})([0-9]{3}\s?)([0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{3})([a-zA-Z0-9]{1}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){2}([a-zA-Z0-9]{3})\s?
SA[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{2})([a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){4}\s?
RS[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){4}([0-9]{2})\s?
SK[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){5}\s?
SI[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){3}([0-9]{3})\s?
ES[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){5}\s?
SE[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){5}\s?
CH[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{1})([a-zA-Z0-9]{3}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){2}([a-zA-Z0-9]{1})\s?
TN[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){5}\s?
TR[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{1})([a-zA-Z0-9]{3}\s?)([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){3}([a-zA-Z0-9]{2})\s?
AE[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{3})([0-9]{1}\s?)([0-9]{4}\s?){3}([0-9]{3})\s?
GB[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){3}([0-9]{2})\s?
VA[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([0-9]{3})([0-9]{1}\s?)([0-9]{4}\s?){3}([0-9]{2})\s?
VG[a-zA-Z0-9]{2}\s?([a-zA-Z0-9]{4}\s?){1}([0-9]{4}\s?){4}\s?
Original:
^[DE]{2}([0-9a-zA-Z]{20})$
Debuggex Demo
Modified:
^DE(?:\s*[0-9a-zA-Z]\s*){20}$
Debuggex Demo
This is the correct regex to match DE IBAN account numbers:
DE\d{2}[ ]\d{4}[ ]\d{4}[ ]\d{4}[ ]\d{4}[ ]\d{2}|DE\d{20}
Pass: DE89 3704 0044 0532 0130 00|||DE89370400440532013000
Fail: DE89-3704-0044-0532-0130-00
Most simple solution I can think of:
^DE(\s*[[:alnum:]]){20}\s*$
In particular, your initial [DE]{2} is wrong, as it allows 'DD', 'EE', 'ED' as well as the intended 'DE'.
To allow any amount of spaces anywhere:
^ *D *E( *[A-Za-z0-9]){20} *$
As you want to allow lower letters, also DE might be lower?
^ *[Dd] *[Ee]( *[A-Za-z0-9]){20} *$
^ matches the start of the string
$ end anchor
in between each characters there are optional spaces *
[character class] defines a set/range of characters
To allow at most one space in between each characters, replace the quantifier * (any amount of) with ? (0 or 1). If supported, \s shorthand can be used to match [ \t\r\n\f] instead of space only.
Test on regex101.com, also see the SO regex FAQ
Using Google Apps Script, I pasted Laurent's code from github into a script and added the following code to test.
// Use the Apps Script IDE's "Run" menu to execute this code.
// Then look at the View > Logs menu to see execution results.
function myFunction() {
//https://github.com/arhs/iban.js/blob/master/README.md
// var IBAN = require('iban');
var t1 = IBAN.isValid('hello world'); // false
var t2 = IBAN.isValid('BE68539007547034'); // true
var t3 = IBAN.isValid('BE68 5390 0754 7034'); // true
Logger.log("Test 1 = %s", t1);
Logger.log("Test 2 = %s", t2);
Logger.log("Test 3 = %s", t3);
}
The only thing needed to run the example code was commenting out the require('iban') line:
// var IBAN = require('iban');
Finally, instead of using client handlers to attempt a RegEx validation of IBAN input, I use a a server handler to do the validation.

Parsing log files

I'm trying to write a script to simplify the process of searching through a particular applications log files for specific information. So I thought maybe there's a way to convert them into an XML tree, and I'm off to a decent start....but The problem is, the application log files are an absolute mess if you ask me
Some entries are simple
2014/04/09 11:27:03 INFO Some.code.function - Doing stuff
Ideally I'd like to turn the above into something like this
<Message>
<Date>2014/04/09</Date>
<Time>11:48:38</Time>
<Type>INFO</Type>
<Source>Some.code.function</Source>
<Sub>Doing stuff</Sub>
</Message>
Other entries are something like this where there's additional information and line breaks
2014/04/09 11:27:04 INFO Some.code.function - Something happens
changes:
this stuff happened
I'd like to turn this last chunk into something like the above, but add the additional info into a section
<Message>
<Date>2014/04/09</Date>
<Time>11:48:38</Time>
<Type>INFO</Type>
<Source>Some.code.function</Source>
<Sub>Doing stuff</Sub>
<details>changes:
this stuff happened</details>
</Message>
and then other messages, errors will be in the form of
2014/04/09 11:27:03 ERROR Some.code.function - Something didn't work right
Log Entry: LONGARSEDGUID
Error Code: E3145
Application: Name
Details:
message information etc etc and more line breaks, this part of the message may add up to an unknown number of lines before the next entry
This last chunk I'd like to convert as the last to above examples, but adding XML nodes for log entry, error code, application, and again, details like so
<Message>
<Date>2014/04/09</Date>
<Time>11:48:38</Time>
<Type>ERROR </Type>
<Source>Some.code.function</Source>
<Sub>Something didn't work right</Sub>
<Entry>LONGARSEDGUID</Entry>
<Code>E3145</Code>
<Application>Name</Application>
<details>message information etc etc and more line breaks, this part of the message may add up to an unknown number of lines before the next entry</details>
</Message>
Now I know that Select-String has a context option which would let me select a number of lines after the line I've filtered, the problem is, this isn't a constant number.
I'm thinking a regular expression would also me to select the paragraph chunk before the date string, but regular expressions are not a strong point of mine, and I thought there might be a better way because the one constant is that new entries start with a date string
the idea though is to either break these up into xml or tables of sorts and then from there I'm hoping it might take the last or filtering non relevant or recurring messages a little easier
I have a sample I just tossed on pastebin after removing/replacing a few bits of information for privacy reasons
http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=M9iShyT2
Sorry this is kind of late, I got tied up with work for a bit there (darn work expecting me to be productive while on their dime). I ended up with something similar to Ansgar Wiechers solution, but formatted things into objects and collected those into an array. It doesn't manage your XML that you added later, but this gives you a nice array of objects to work with for the other records. I'll explain the main RegEx line here, I'll comment in-line where it's practical.
'(^\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2} \d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}) [\d+?] (\w+?) {1,2}(.+?) - (.+)$' is the Regex that detects the start of a new record. I started to explain it, but there are probably better resources for you to learn RegEx than me explaining it to me. See this RegEx101.com link for a full breakdown and examples.
$Records=#() #Create empty array that we will populate with custom objects later
$Event = $Null #make sure nothing in $Event to give script a clean start
Get-Content 'C:\temp\test1.txt' | #Load file, and start looping through it line-by-line.
?{![string]::IsNullOrEmpty($_)}|% { #Filter out blank lines, and then perform the following on each line
if ($_ -match '(^\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2} \d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}) \[\d+?] (\w+?) {1,2}(.+?) - (.+)$') { #New Record Detector line! If it finds this RegEx match, it means we're starting a new record.
if ($Event) { #If there's already a record in progress, add it to the Array
$Records+=$Event
}
$Event = New-Object PSObject -Property #{ #Create a custom PSObject object with these properties that we just got from that RegEx match
DateStamp = [datetime](get-date $Matches[1]) #We convert the date/time stamp into an actual DateTime object. That way sorting works better, and you can compare it to real dates if needed.
Type = $Matches[2]
Source = $Matches[3]
Message = $Matches[4]}
Ok, little pause for the cause here. $Matches isn't defined by me, why am I referencing it? . When PowerShell gets matches from a RegEx expression it automagically stores the resulting matches in $Matches. So all the groups that we just matched in parenthesis become $Matches[1], $Matches[2], and so on. Yes, it's an array, and there is a $Matches[0], but that is the entire string that was matched against, not just the groups that matched. We now return you to your regularly scheduled script...
} else { #End of the 'New Record' section. If it's not a new record if does the following
if($_ -match "^((?:[^ ^\[])(?:\w| |\.)+?):(.*)$"){
RegEx match again. It starts off by stating that this has to be the beginning of the string with the carat character (^). Then it says (in a non-capturing group noted by the (?:<stuff>) format, which really for my purposes just means it won't show up in $Matches) [^ \[]; that means that the next character can not be a space or opening bracket (escaped with a ), just to speed things up and skip those lines for this check. If you have things in brackets [] and the first character is a carat it means 'don't match anything in these brackets'.
I actually just changed this next part to include periods, and used \w instead of [a-zA-Z0-9] because it's essentially the same thing but shorter. \w is a "word character" in RegEx, and includes letters, numbers, and the underscore. I'm not sure why the underscore is considered part of a word, but I don't make the rules I just play the game. I was using [a-zA-Z0-9] which matches anything between 'a' and 'z' (lowercase), anything between 'A' and 'Z' (uppercase), and anything between '0' and '9'. At the risk of including the underscore character \w is a lot shorter and simpler.
Then the actual capturing part of this RegEx. This has 2 groups, the first is letters, numbers, underscores, spaces, and periods (escaped with a \ because '.' on it's own matches any character). Then a colon. Then a second group that is everything else until the end of the line.
$Field = $Matches[1] #Everything before the colon is the name of the field
$Value = $Matches[2].trim() #everything after the colon is the data in that field
$Event | Add-Member $Field $Value #Add the Field to $Event as a NoteProperty, with a value of $Value. Those two are actually positional parameters for Add-Member, so we don't have to go and specify what kind of member, specify what the name is, and what the value is. Just Add-Member <[string]name> <value can be a string, array, yeti, whatever... it's not picky>
} #End of New Field for current record
else{$Value = $_} #If it didn't find the regex to determine if it is a new field then this is just more data from the last field, so don't change the field, just set it all as data.
} else { #If it didn't find the regex then this is just more data from the last field, so don't change the field, just set it all as data.the field does not 'not exist') do this:
$Event.$Field += if(![string]::isNullOrEmpty($Event.$Field)){"`r`n$_"}else{$_}}
This is a long explanation for a fairly short bit of code. Really all it does is add data to the field! This has an inverted (prefixed with !) If check to see if the current field has any data, if it, or if it is currently Null or Empty. If it is empty it adds a new line, and then adds the $Value data. If it doesn't have any data it skips the new line bit, and just adds the data.
}
}
}
$Records+=$Event #Adds the last event to the array of records.
Sorry, I'm not very good with XML. But at least this gets you clean records.
Edit: Ok, code is notated now, hopefully everything is explained well enough. If something is still confusing perhaps I can refer you to a site that explains better than I can. I ran the above against your sample input in PasteBin.
One possible way to deal with such files is to process them line by line. Each log entry starts with a timestamp and ends when the next line starting with a timestamp appears, so you could do something like this:
Get-Content 'C:\path\to\your.log' | % {
if ($_ -match '^\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2} \d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}') {
if ($logRecord) {
# If a current log record exists, it is complete now, so it can be added
# to your XML or whatever, e.g.:
$logRecord -match '^(\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2}) (\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}) (\S+) ...'
$message = $xml.CreateElement('Message')
$date = $xml.CreateElement('Date')
$date.InnerText = $matches[1]
$message.AppendChild($date)
$time = $xml.CreateElement('Time')
$time.InnerText = $matches[2]
$message.AppendChild($time)
$type = $xml.CreateElement('Type')
$type.InnerText = $matches[3]
$message.AppendChild($type)
...
$xml.SelectSingleNode('...').AppendChild($message)
}
$logRecord = $_ # start new record
} else {
$logRecord += "`r`n$_" # append to current record
}
}

Vim: Delete the text matching a pattern IF submatch(1) is empty

This command line parses a contact list document that may or may not have either a phone, email or web listed. If it has all three then everything works great - appending the return from the FormatContact() at the end of the line for data uploading:
silent!/^\d/+1|ki|/\n^\d\|\%$/-1|kj|'i,'jd|let #a = substitute(#",'\s*Phone: \([^,]*\)\_.*','\1',"")|let #b = substitute(#",'^\_.*E-mail:\s\[\d*\]\([-_#.0-9a-zA-Z]*\)\_.*','\1',"")|let #c = substitute(#",'^\_.*Web site:\s*\[\d*\]\([-_.:/0-9a-zA-Z]*\)\_.*','\1',"")|?^\d\+?s/$/\=','.FormatContact(#a,#b,#c)
or, broken down:
silent!/^\d/+1|ki|/\n^\d\|\%$/-1|kj|'i,'jd
let #a = substitute(#",'\s*Phone: \([^,]*\)\_.*','\1',"")
let #b = substitute(#",'^\_.*E-mail:\s\[\d*\]\([-_#.0-9a-zA-Z]*\)\_.*','\1',"")
let #c = substitute(#",'^\_.*Web site:\s*\[\d*\]\([-_.:/0-9a-zA-Z]*\)\_.*','\1',"")
?^\d\+?s/$/\=','.FormatContact(#a,#b,#c)
I created three separate searches so as not to make any ONE search fail if one atom failed to match because - again - the contact info may or may not exist per contact.
The Problem that solution created was that when the pattern does not match I get the whole #" into #a. Instead, I need it to be empty when the match does not occur. I need each variable represented (phone,email,web) whether it be empty or not.
I see no flags that can be set in the substitution function that
will do this.
Is there a way to return "" if \1 is empty?
Is there a way to create an optional atom so the search query(ies) could still account for an empty match so as to properly record it as empty?
Instead of using substitutions that replace the whole captured text
with its part of interest, one can match only that target part. Unlike
substitution routines, matching ones either locate the text conforming
to the given pattern, or report that there is no such text. Thus,
using the matchstr() function in preference to substitute(), the
parsing code listed in the question can be changed as follows:
let #a = matchstr(#", '\<Phone:\s*\zs[^,]*')
let #b = matchstr(#", '\<E-mail:\s*\[\d*\]\zs[-_#.0-9a-zA-Z]*')
let #c = matchstr(#", '\<Web site:\s*\[\d*\]\zs[-_.:/0-9a-zA-Z]*')
Just in case you want linewise processing, consider using in combination with :global, e.g.
let #a=""
g/text to match/let #A=substitute(getline("."), '^.*\(' . #/ . '\).*$', '\1\r', '')
This will print the matched text for any line that contained it, separated with newlines:
echo #a
The beautiful thing here, is that you can make it work with the last-used search-pattern very easily:
g//let #A=substitute(getline("."), '^.*\(' . #/ . '\).*$', '\1\r', '')