Regular Expressions in R - regex

I found somewhat similar questions
R - Select string text between two values, regex for n characters or at least m characters,
but I'm still having trouble
say I have a string in r
testing_String <- "AK ADAK NAS PADK ADK 70454 51 53N 176 39W 4 X T 7"
And I need to be able to pull anything between the first element in the string that contains 2 characters (AK) and PADK,ADK. PADK and ADK will change in character but will always be 4 and 3 characters in length respectively.
So I would need to pull
ADAK NAS
I came up with this but its picking up everything from AK to ADK
^[A-Za-z0_9_]{2}(.*?) +[A-Za-z0_9_]{4}|[A-Za-z0_9_]{3,}

If I understood your question correctly, this should do the trick:
\b[A-Z]{2}\s+(.+?)\s+[A-Z]{4}\s+[A-Z]{3}\b
Demo
You'll have to switch the perl = TRUE option (to use a decent regex engine).
\b means word boundary. So this pattern looks for a match starting with a 2-letter word and ending with a 4 letter word followed by a 3 letter word. Your value will be in the first group.
Alternatively, you can write the following to avoid using the capturing group:
\b[A-Z]{2}\s+\K.+?(?=\s+[A-Z]{4}\s+[A-Z]{3}\b)
But I'd prefer the first method because it's easier to read.

Lookbehind is supported for perl=TRUE, so this regex will do what you want:
(?<=\w{2}\s).*?(?=\s+[^\s]{4}\s[^\s]{2})

Related

extract text data using regexp in MATLAB

I'm dealing with extracting visibility data in METAR(airport weather observation data).
Visibility is a 4 digit(0~9) data, and can also be expressed as'CAVOK' when visibility is good.
but it's quite tricky to use regexp. (METAR data have many variations.)
Data sample(MET_VIS) below:
201903072300 METAR RKPC 072300Z 17003KT 110V210 CAVOK 05/02 Q1026 NOSIG=
201903062000 METAR RKPC 062000Z 33018G29KT 4000 BR FEW012 SCT025 08/04 Q1018 WS R13 R31 NOSIG=
201903062200 METAR RKPC 062200Z 33015KT 290V350 9999 SCT030 07/03 Q1019 NOSIG=
201903080000 METAR RKPC 080000Z 29002KT CAVOK 08/02 Q1027 NOSIG=
I want to extract CAVOK, 4000, 9999, CAVOK on each line.
I tried but this code doesn't work with line 3 :( It returns blank.
regexp(MET_VIS(i),'((?<=KT\s)\d{4})|CAVOK','match')
The third value does not end on KT. What you might do is use another positive lookbehind to check if the string before it ends on KT and match a range of matching 7 times A-Z0-9 followed by a whitespace char after it.
Then you either match 4 digits or CAVOK using an alternation (?:\d{4}|CAVOK) or else you could match CAVOK anywhere in the string.
Add a word boundary after it to prevent the match being part of a larger word.
(?:(?<=KT\s)|(?<=KT [A-Z0-9]{7}\s))(?:\d{4}|CAVOK)\b
Regex demo
You could also make an assumption about the range of "words" from the end your target should be allowed to occur in. For example:
/\b(?:\d{4}|CAVOK)\b(?=(?: \S+){3,9}$)/gm
See regex demo.
Here we're looking for a four-digit number or the phrase CAVOK only, if it is followed by 3 to 9 non-space substrings of variable length until the end of the line.

Regular Expression Extracting Text from a group

I have a filename like this:
0296005_PH3843C5_SEQ_6210_QTY_BILLING_D_DEV_0000000000000183.PS.
I needed to break down the name into groups which are separated by a underscore. Which I did like this:
(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)(\d{16})(.*)
So far so go.
Now I need to extract characters from one of the group for example in group 2 I need the first 3 and 8 decimal ( keep mind they could be characters too ).
So I had try something like this :
(.*?)_([38]{2})(.*?) _(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)(\d{16})(.*)
It didn’t work but if I do this:
(.*?)_([PH]{2})(.*?) _(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)(\d{16})(.*)
It will pull the PH into a group but not the 38 ? So I’m lost at this point.
Any help would be great
Try the below Regex to match any first 3 char/decimal and one decimal
(.?)_([A-Z0-9]{3}[0-9]{1})(.?)(.*?)(.?)_(.?)(.*?)(.?)_(.?)
Try the below Regex to match any first 3 char/decimal and one decimal/char
(.?)_([A-Z0-9]{3}[A-Z0-9]{1})(.?)(.*?)(.?)_(.?)(.*?)(.?)_(.?)
It will match any 3 letters/digits followed by 1 letter/digit.
If your first two letter is a constant like "PH" then try the below
(.?)_([PH]+[0-9A-Z]{2})(.?)(.*?)(.?)_(.?)(.*?)(.?)_(.?)
I am assuming that you are trying to match group2 starting with numbers. If that is the case then you have change the source string such as
0296005_383843C5_SEQ_6210_QTY_BILLING_D_DEV_0000000000000183.PS.
It works, check it out at https://regex101.com/r/zem3vt/1
Using [^_]* performs much better in your case than .*? since it doesn't backtrack. So changing your original regex from:
(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)_(.*?)(\d{16})(.*)
to:
([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*?)(\d{16})(.*)
reduces the number of steps from 114 to 42 for your given string.
The best method might be to actually split your string on _ and then test the second element to see if it contains 38. Since you haven't specified a language, I can't help to show how in your language, but most languages employ a contains or indexOf method that can be used to determine whether or not a substring exists in a string.
Using regex alone, however, this can be accomplished using the following regular expression.
See regex in use here
Ensuring 38 exists in the second part:
([^_]*)_([^_]*38[^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*?)(\d{16})(.*)
Capturing the 38 in the second part:
([^_]*)_([^_]*)(38)([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*?)(\d{16})(.*)

How Can I Create a RegEx Pattern that will Get N Words Using Custom Word Boundary?

I need a RegEx pattern that will return the first N words using a custom word boundary that is the normal RegEx white space (\s) plus punctuation like .,;:!?-*_
EDIT #1: Thanks for all your comments.
To be clear:
I'd like to set the characters that would be the word delimiters
Lets call this the "Delimiter Set", or strDelimiters
strDelimiters = ".,;:!?-*_"
nNumWordsToFind = 5
A word is defined as any contiguous text that does NOT contain any character in strDelimiters
The RegEx word boundary is any contiguous text that contains one or more of the characters in strDelimiters
I'd like to build the RegEx pattern to get/return the first nNumWordsToFind using the strDelimiters.
EDIT #2: Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 12:49 AM US CT
#maraca definitely answered my question as originally stated.
But what I actually need is to return the number of words ≤ nNumWordsToFind.
So if the source text has only 3 words, but my RegEx asks for 4 words, I need it to return the 3 words. The answer provided by maraca fails if nNumWordsToFind > number of actual words in the source text.
For example:
one,two;three-four_five.six:seven eight nine! ten
It would see this as 10 words.
If I want the first 5 words, it would return:
one,two;three-four_five.
I have this pattern using the normal \s whitespace, which works, but NOT exactly what I need:
([\w]+\s+){<NumWordsOut>}
where <NumWordsOut> is the number of words to return.
I have also found this word boundary pattern, but I don't know how to use it:
a "real word boundary" that detects the edge between an ASCII letter
and a non-letter.
(?i)(?<=^|[^a-z])(?=[a-z])|(?<=[a-z])(?=$|[^a-z])
However, I would want my words to allow numbers as well.
IAC, I have not been able how to use the above custom word boundary pattern to return the first N words of my text.
BTW, I will be using this in a Keyboard Maestro macro.
Can anyone help?
TIA.
All you have to do is to adapt your pattern ([\w]+\s+){<NumWordsOut>} to, including some special cases:
^[\s.,;:!?*_-]*([^\s.,;:!?*_-]+([\s.,;:!?*_-]+|$)){<NumWordsOut>}
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Match any amount of delimiters before the first word
Match a word (= at least one non-delimiter)
The word has to be followed by at least one delimiter
Or it can be at the end of the string (in case no delimiter follows at the end)
Repeat 2. to 4. <NumWordsOut> times
Note how I changed the order of the -, it has to be at the start or end, otherwise it needs to be escaped: \-.
Thanks to #maraca for providing the complete answer to my question.
I just wanted to post the Keyboard Maestro macro that I have built using #maraca's RegEx pattern for anyone interested in the complete solution.
See KM Forum Macro: Get a Max of N Words in String Using RegEx

best approach for my pattern match

So, I've built a regex which follows this:
4!a2!a2!c[3!c]
which is translated to
4 alpha character followed by
2 alpha characters followed by
2 characters followed by
3 optional character
this is a standard format for SWIFT BIC code HSBCGB2LXXX
my regex to pull this out of string is:
(?<=:32[^:]:)(([a-zA-Z]{4}[a-zA-Z]{2})[0-9][a-zA-Z]{1}[X]{3})
Now this is targeting a specific tag (32) and works, however, I'm not sure if it's the cleanest, plus if there are any characters before H then it fails.
the string being matched against is:
:32B:HsBfGB4LXXXHELLO
the following returns HSBCGB4LXXX, but this:
:32B:2HsBfGB4LXXXHELLO
returns nothing.
EDIT
For clarity. I have a string which contains multiple lines all starting with :2xnumber:optional letter (eg, :58A:) i want to specify a line to start matching in and return a BIC from anywhere in the line.
EDIT
Some more example data to help:
:20:ABCDERF Z
:23B:CRED
:32A:140310AUD2120,
:33B:AUD2120,
:50K:/111222333
Mr Bank of Dad
Dads house
England
:52D:/DBEL02010987654321
address 1
address 2
:53B:/HSBCGB2LXXX
:57A://AU124040
AREFERENCE
:59:/44556677
A line which HSBCGB2LXXX contains a BIC
:70:Another line of data
:71A:Even more
Ok, so I need to pass in as a variable the tag 53 or 59 and return the BIC HSBCGB2LXXX only!
Your regex can be simplified, and corrected to allow a character before the H, to:
:32[^:]:.?([a-zA-Z]{6}\d[a-zA-Z]XXX)
The changes made were:
Lost the look behind - just make it part of the match
Inserting .? meaning "optional character"
([a-zA-Z]{4}[a-zA-Z]{2}) ==> [a-zA-Z]{6} (4+2=6)
[0-9] ==> \d (\d means "any digit")
[X]{3} ==> XXX (just easier to read and less characters)
Group 1 of the match contains your target
I'm not quite sure if I understand your question completely, as your regular expression does not completely match what you have described above it. For example, you mentioned 3 optional characters, but in the regexp you use 3 mandatory X-es.
However, the actual regular expression can be further cleaned:
instead of [a-zA-Z]{4}[a-zA-Z]{2}, you can simply use [a-zA-Z]{6}, and the grouping parentheses around this might be unnecessary;
the {1} can be left out without any change in the result;
the X does not need surrounding brackets.
All in all
(?<=:32[^:]:)([a-zA-Z]{6}[0-9][a-zA-Z]X{3})
is shorter and matches in the very same cases.
If you give a better description of the domain, probably further improvements are also possible.

Need to capture single character, but ignore digit

I'm parsing out flight info.
Here's the sample data:
E0.777 7 3:09
E0.319 N 1:43
E0.735 8 1:45
E0.735 N 1:48
E0.M80 9 3:21
E0.733 1:48
I need to populate fields like this:
Equipment: 735
On Time: N
Duration: 1:48
Problem I'm having is capturing the Y or N character but ignoring the single digit, then capturing the duration.
This is the expression I have tried:
#"^.{3}(.{3})\s?([N|Y]?)?(?:[0-9]\s+)?(\w{4})"
Edit: I updated the sample data to clarify my question. Equipment is not always three digits, it could be a character and two digits. The data between the equipment and the duration could be a boolean N or Y, a single digit, or white space. Only the boolean should be captured.
Firstly, you mix up the concepts of alternation and character classes [Y|N] would match 3 different characters: Y or | or N. Either use (...) or leave out the pipe.
Secondly your double ? after the character class does not really do anything. Thirdly, at the end you only match consecutive spaces if a digit was found. But if there is no digit, the last ? will ignore the subpattern, thus not allowing spaces either.
Lastly, \w does not match :.
Try this:
#"^.{3}(\d{3})\s?(?:([NY])|\d)\s+(\d:\d\d)"
You should also think about restricting the repeated . at the beginning to a more precise character class (i.e \w{2}\., but I don't know the possibilities there).
#"^..\.(\d{3})\s(?:([YN])|\d)\s*(\S{4})"
Changed .{3} to ..\. which is a bit more specific about there being a literal . for character 3.
(?:([YN])|\d) matches either Y/N or a digit, but only captures a Y or N. Notice that it's [YN] not [Y|N].
Changed \w{4} to \S{4} since \w doesn't match colons :.
This will do it...
^\w\d\.(\d{3})\s(?:([YN])|\d)\s*(\d:\d{2})$
I made some other changes to your regex because it was easier for me to just rewrite it based off your data then to try to modify what you had.
This will capture the Y or N or it won't capture anything in that group. I also tried to be more specific with your duration regex.
Update: This works with your new requirements...
^\w\d\.(\w{3})\s(?:([YN])|\d|\s)\s*(\d:\d{2})$
You can see it working on your data here... http://regexr.com?32j1b
(hover over each line to see the matched groups)
This captures all lines with Y or N and ignores everything else:
^...(\d{3})\s*([YN])\s*(\d+:\d+)