Retrieving a regex search in C++ - c++

Hello I am new to regular expressions and from what I understood from the c++ reference website it is possible to get match results.
My question is: how do I retrieve these results? What is the difference between smatch and cmatch? For example, I have a string consisting of date and time and this is the regular expression I wrote:
"(1[0-2]|0?[1-9])([:][0-5][0-9])?(am|pm)"
Now when I do a regex_search with the string and the above expression, I can find whether there is a time in the string or not. But I want to store that time in a structure so I can separate hours and minutes. I am using Visual studio 2010 c++.

If you use e.g. std::regex_search then it fills in a std::match_result where you can use the operator[] to get the matched strings.
Edit: Example program:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <regex>
void test_regex_search(const std::string& input)
{
std::regex rgx("((1[0-2])|(0?[1-9])):([0-5][0-9])((am)|(pm))");
std::smatch match;
if (std::regex_search(input.begin(), input.end(), match, rgx))
{
std::cout << "Match\n";
//for (auto m : match)
// std::cout << " submatch " << m << '\n';
std::cout << "match[1] = " << match[1] << '\n';
std::cout << "match[4] = " << match[4] << '\n';
std::cout << "match[5] = " << match[5] << '\n';
}
else
std::cout << "No match\n";
}
int main()
{
const std::string time1 = "9:45pm";
const std::string time2 = "11:53am";
test_regex_search(time1);
test_regex_search(time2);
}
Output from the program:
Match
match[1] = 9
match[4] = 45
match[5] = pm
Match
match[1] = 11
match[4] = 53
match[5] = am

Just use named groups.
(?<hour>(1[0-2]|0?[1-9]))([:](?<minute>[0-5][0-9]))?(am|pm)
Ok, vs2010 doesn't support named groups. You already using unnamed capture groups. Go through them.

Related

Trouble with C++11 regex_search [duplicate]

I'm a bit confused about the following C++11 code:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <regex>
int main()
{
std::string haystack("abcdefabcghiabc");
std::regex needle("abc");
std::smatch matches;
std::regex_search(haystack, matches, needle);
std::cout << matches.size() << std::endl;
}
I'd expect it to print out 3 but instead I get 1. Am I missing something?
You get 1 because regex_search returns only 1 match, and size() will return the number of capture groups + the whole match value.
Your matches is...:
Object of a match_results type (such as cmatch or smatch) that is filled by this function with information about the match results and any submatches found.
If [the regex search is] successful, it is not empty and contains a series of sub_match objects: the first sub_match element corresponds to the entire match, and, if the regex expression contained sub-expressions to be matched (i.e., parentheses-delimited groups), their corresponding sub-matches are stored as successive sub_match elements in the match_results object.
Here is a code that will find multiple matches:
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <regex>
using namespace std;
int main() {
string str("abcdefabcghiabc");
int i = 0;
regex rgx1("abc");
smatch smtch;
while (regex_search(str, smtch, rgx1)) {
std::cout << i << ": " << smtch[0] << std::endl;
i += 1;
str = smtch.suffix().str();
}
return 0;
}
See IDEONE demo returning abc 3 times.
As this method destroys the input string, here is another alternative based on the std::sregex_iterator (std::wsregex_iterator should be used when your subject is an std::wstring object):
int main() {
std::regex r("ab(c)");
std::string s = "abcdefabcghiabc";
for(std::sregex_iterator i = std::sregex_iterator(s.begin(), s.end(), r);
i != std::sregex_iterator();
++i)
{
std::smatch m = *i;
std::cout << "Match value: " << m.str() << " at Position " << m.position() << '\n';
std::cout << " Capture: " << m[1].str() << " at Position " << m.position(1) << '\n';
}
return 0;
}
See IDEONE demo, returning
Match value: abc at Position 0
Capture: c at Position 2
Match value: abc at Position 6
Capture: c at Position 8
Match value: abc at Position 12
Capture: c at Position 14
What you're missing is that matches is populated with one entry for each capture group (including the entire matched substring as the 0th capture).
If you write
std::regex needle("a(b)c");
then you'll get matches.size()==2, with matches[0]=="abc", and matches[1]=="b".
EDIT: Some people have downvoted this answer. That may be for a variety of reasons, but if it is because it does not apply to the answer I criticized (no one left a comment to explain the decision), they should take note that W. Stribizew changed the code two months after I wrote this, and I was unaware of it until today, 2021-01-18. The rest of the answer is unchanged from when I first wrote it.
#stribizhev's solution has quadratic worst case complexity for sane regular expressions. For insane ones (e.g. "y*"), it doesn't terminate. In some applications, these issues could be DoS attacks waiting to happen. Here's a fixed version:
string str("abcdefabcghiabc");
int i = 0;
regex rgx1("abc");
smatch smtch;
auto beg = str.cbegin();
while (regex_search(beg, str.cend(), smtch, rgx1)) {
std::cout << i << ": " << smtch[0] << std::endl;
i += 1;
if ( smtch.length(0) > 0 )
std::advance(beg, smtch.length(0));
else if ( beg != str.cend() )
++beg;
else
break;
}
According to my personal preference, this will find n+1 matches of an empty regex in a string of length n. You might also just exit the loop after an empty match.
If you want to compare the performance for a string with millions of matches, add the following lines after the definition of str (and don't forget to turn on optimizations), once for each version:
for (int j = 0; j < 20; ++j)
str = str + str;

C++ cannot parse date with regex - only matches month (the first number) [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Difference between * and + regex
(7 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
I am trying to use a simple regular expression to parse date in form of 10/10/2010. The regex I am using is date_re("\d*"). After the first match of 10, I reset the string to search to the match object suffix, which is correct /10/2010, but my regex no longer works on this string. I was assuming it would find the next 10.
#include <iostream>
#include <regex>
#include <string>
int main() {
std::string dateIn;
std::regex date_re("\\d*");
std::cout << "Enter a date in form of mm/dd/yyyy: ";
std::getline(std::cin,dateIn);
std::smatch matches;
std::regex_search(dateIn,matches,date_re);
std::cout << matches[0] << std::endl;
std::cout << matches.suffix().str() << "\n\n";
dateIn = matches.suffix().str();
std::regex_search(dateIn,matches,date_re);
std::cout << matches[0] << std::endl;
}
I had a while loop doing this but it was infinite loop. With input 10/10/2010 my output is
10
/10/2010
My last output statement does not print anything. Can someone help with my regex issue? Specifically I am looking for a regex that will parse all three numbers from the date.
As the comment says, if you change \\d* to \\d+, it will work,
#include <iostream>
#include <regex>
#include <string>
int main() {
std::string dateIn;
std::regex date_re("\\d+");
std::cout << "Enter a date in form of mm/dd/yyyy: ";
std::getline(std::cin,dateIn);
std::smatch matches;
std::regex_search(dateIn,matches,date_re);
std::cout << matches[0] << std::endl;
std::cout << matches.suffix().str() << "\n\n";
dateIn = matches.suffix().str();
std::regex_search(dateIn,matches,date_re);
std::cout << matches[0] << std::endl;
}
The output is
Enter a date in form of mm/dd/yyyy: 11/12/2019
11
/12/2019
12

What does std::match_results::size return?

I'm a bit confused about the following C++11 code:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <regex>
int main()
{
std::string haystack("abcdefabcghiabc");
std::regex needle("abc");
std::smatch matches;
std::regex_search(haystack, matches, needle);
std::cout << matches.size() << std::endl;
}
I'd expect it to print out 3 but instead I get 1. Am I missing something?
You get 1 because regex_search returns only 1 match, and size() will return the number of capture groups + the whole match value.
Your matches is...:
Object of a match_results type (such as cmatch or smatch) that is filled by this function with information about the match results and any submatches found.
If [the regex search is] successful, it is not empty and contains a series of sub_match objects: the first sub_match element corresponds to the entire match, and, if the regex expression contained sub-expressions to be matched (i.e., parentheses-delimited groups), their corresponding sub-matches are stored as successive sub_match elements in the match_results object.
Here is a code that will find multiple matches:
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <regex>
using namespace std;
int main() {
string str("abcdefabcghiabc");
int i = 0;
regex rgx1("abc");
smatch smtch;
while (regex_search(str, smtch, rgx1)) {
std::cout << i << ": " << smtch[0] << std::endl;
i += 1;
str = smtch.suffix().str();
}
return 0;
}
See IDEONE demo returning abc 3 times.
As this method destroys the input string, here is another alternative based on the std::sregex_iterator (std::wsregex_iterator should be used when your subject is an std::wstring object):
int main() {
std::regex r("ab(c)");
std::string s = "abcdefabcghiabc";
for(std::sregex_iterator i = std::sregex_iterator(s.begin(), s.end(), r);
i != std::sregex_iterator();
++i)
{
std::smatch m = *i;
std::cout << "Match value: " << m.str() << " at Position " << m.position() << '\n';
std::cout << " Capture: " << m[1].str() << " at Position " << m.position(1) << '\n';
}
return 0;
}
See IDEONE demo, returning
Match value: abc at Position 0
Capture: c at Position 2
Match value: abc at Position 6
Capture: c at Position 8
Match value: abc at Position 12
Capture: c at Position 14
What you're missing is that matches is populated with one entry for each capture group (including the entire matched substring as the 0th capture).
If you write
std::regex needle("a(b)c");
then you'll get matches.size()==2, with matches[0]=="abc", and matches[1]=="b".
EDIT: Some people have downvoted this answer. That may be for a variety of reasons, but if it is because it does not apply to the answer I criticized (no one left a comment to explain the decision), they should take note that W. Stribizew changed the code two months after I wrote this, and I was unaware of it until today, 2021-01-18. The rest of the answer is unchanged from when I first wrote it.
#stribizhev's solution has quadratic worst case complexity for sane regular expressions. For insane ones (e.g. "y*"), it doesn't terminate. In some applications, these issues could be DoS attacks waiting to happen. Here's a fixed version:
string str("abcdefabcghiabc");
int i = 0;
regex rgx1("abc");
smatch smtch;
auto beg = str.cbegin();
while (regex_search(beg, str.cend(), smtch, rgx1)) {
std::cout << i << ": " << smtch[0] << std::endl;
i += 1;
if ( smtch.length(0) > 0 )
std::advance(beg, smtch.length(0));
else if ( beg != str.cend() )
++beg;
else
break;
}
According to my personal preference, this will find n+1 matches of an empty regex in a string of length n. You might also just exit the loop after an empty match.
If you want to compare the performance for a string with millions of matches, add the following lines after the definition of str (and don't forget to turn on optimizations), once for each version:
for (int j = 0; j < 20; ++j)
str = str + str;

regex_match giving unexpected results

I'm trying to write a recursive descent parser and am trying to search a match a regex within a string inputted by the user. I am trying to do the following to try to understand the <regex> library offered by C++11, but I'm getting unexpected results.
std::string expression = "2+2+2";
std::regex re("[-+*/()]");
std::smatch m;
std::cout << "My expression is " << expression << std::endl;
if(std::regex_search(expression, re)) {
std::cout << "Found a match!" << std::endl;
}
std::regex_match(expression, m, re);
std::cout << "matches:" << std::endl;
for (auto it = m.begin(); it!=m.end(); ++it) {
std::cout << *it << std::endl;
}
So based on my regular expression, I expect it to output
Found a match!
matches:
+
+
However, the output I get is:
My expression is 2+2+2
Found a match!
matches:
I feel like I'm making a stupid mistake, but I can't seem to figure out why there's a discrepancy between the outputs.
Thanks,
erip
You've got a few issues. First, let's look at some working code:
#include <regex>
#include <iostream>
int main() {
std::string expr = "2+2+2";
std::regex re("[+\\-*/()]");
const auto operators_begin = std::sregex_iterator(expr.begin(), expr.end(), re);
const auto operators_end = std::sregex_iterator();
std::cout << "Count: " << std::distance(operators_begin, operators_end) << "\n";
for (auto i = operators_begin; i != operators_end; ++i) {
std::smatch match = *i;
std::cout << match.str() << "\n";
}
}
Output:
Count: 2
+
+
Issues with your code:
regex_match() returns false.
You don't have any capturing groups in the regular expression. So even if regex_match() returned true, it wouldn't capture anything.
The number of captures in a regex_match can be determined strictly by looking at the regular expression. So my re will capture exactly one group.
But we want to apply this regular expression on our string multiple times, because we want to find all of the matches. The tool for that is regex_iterator.
We also needed to escape the - in the regular expression. The minus has a special meaning within character classes.
I found the regex_iterator, which solved the problem. Here's the working code:
std::regex re("[-+*/()]");
std::smatch m;
std::cout << "My expression is " << expression << std::endl;
if(std::regex_search(expression, re)) {
std::cout << "Found a match!" << std::endl;
}
try {
std::sregex_iterator next(expression.begin(), expression.end(), re);
std::sregex_iterator end;
while (next != end) {
std::smatch match = *next;
std::cout << match.str() << "\n";
next++;
}
} catch (std::regex_error& e) {
// Syntax error in the regular expression
}

Regex C++: extract substring

I would like to extract a substring between two others.
ex: /home/toto/FILE_mysymbol_EVENT.DAT
or just FILE_othersymbol_EVENT.DAT
And I would like to get : mysymbol and othersymbol
I don't want to use boost or other libs. Just standard stuffs from C++, except CERN's ROOT lib, with TRegexp, but I don't know how to use it...
Since last year C++ has regular expression built into the standard. This program will show how to use them to extract the string you are after:
#include <regex>
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
const std::string s = "/home/toto/FILE_mysymbol_EVENT.DAT";
std::regex rgx(".*FILE_(\\w+)_EVENT\\.DAT.*");
std::smatch match;
if (std::regex_search(s.begin(), s.end(), match, rgx))
std::cout << "match: " << match[1] << '\n';
}
It will output:
match: mysymbol
It should be noted though, that it will not work in GCC as its library support for regular expression is not very good. Works well in VS2010 (and probably VS2012), and should work in clang.
By now (late 2016) all modern C++ compilers and their standard libraries are fully up to date with the C++11 standard, and most if not all of C++14 as well. GCC 6 and the upcoming Clang 4 support most of the coming C++17 standard as well.
TRegexp only supports a very limited subset of regular expressions compared to other regex flavors. This makes constructing a single regex that suits your needs somewhat awkward.
One possible solution:
[^_]*_([^_]*)_
will match the string until the first underscore, then capture all characters until the next underscore. The relevant result of the match is then found in group number 1.
But in your case, why use a regex at all? Just find the first and second occurrence of your delimiter _ in the string and extract the characters between those positions.
If you want to use regular expressions, I'd really recommend using C++11's regexes or, if you have a compiler that doesn't yet support them, Boost. Boost is something I consider almost-part-of-standard-C++.
But for this particular question, you do not really need any form of regular expressions. Something like this sketch should work just fine, after you add all appropriate error checks (beg != npos, end != npos etc.), test code, and remove my typos:
std::string between(std::string const &in,
std::string const &before, std::string const &after) {
size_type beg = in.find(before);
beg += before.size();
size_type end = in.find(after, beg);
return in.substr(beg, end-beg);
}
Obviously, you could change the std::string to a template parameter and it should work just fine with std::wstring or more seldomly used instantiations of std::basic_string as well.
I would study corner cases before trusting it.
But This is a good candidate:
std::string text = "/home/toto/FILE_mysymbol_EVENT.DAT";
std::regex reg("(.*)(FILE_)(.*)(_EVENT.DAT)(.*)");
std::cout << std::regex_replace(text, reg, "$3") << '\n';
The answers of Some programmer dude, Tim Pietzcker, and Christopher Creutzig are cool and correct, but they seemed to me not very obvious for beginners.
The following function is an attempt to create an auxiliary illustration for Some programmer dude and Tim Pietzcker's answers:
void ExtractSubString(const std::string& start_string
, const std::string& string_regex_extract_substring_template)
{
std::regex regex_extract_substring_template(
string_regex_extract_substring_template);
std::smatch match;
std::cout << std::endl;
std::cout << "A substring extract template: " << std::endl;
std::cout << std::quoted(string_regex_extract_substring_template)
<< std::endl;
std::cout << std::endl;
std::cout << "Start string: " << std::endl;
std::cout << start_string << std::endl;
std::cout << std::endl;
if (std::regex_search(start_string.begin(), start_string.end()
, match, regex_extract_substring_template))
{
std::cout << "match0: " << match[0] << std::endl;
std::cout << "match1: " << match[1] << std::endl;
std::cout << "match2: " << match[2] << std::endl;
}
std::cout << std::endl;
}
The following overloaded function is an attempt to help illustrate Christopher Creutzig's answer:
void ExtractSubString(const std::string& start_string
, const std::string& before_substring, const std::string& after_substring)
{
std::cout << std::endl;
std::cout << "A before substring: " << std::endl;
std::cout << std::quoted(before_substring) << std::endl;
std::cout << std::endl;
std::cout << "An after substring: " << std::endl;
std::cout << std::quoted(after_substring) << std::endl;
std::cout << std::endl;
std::cout << "Start string: " << std::endl;
std::cout << start_string << std::endl;
std::cout << std::endl;
size_t before_substring_begin
= start_string.find(before_substring);
size_t extract_substring_begin
= before_substring_begin + before_substring.size();
size_t extract_substring_end
= start_string.find(after_substring, extract_substring_begin);
std::cout << "Extract substring: " << std::endl;
std::cout
<< start_string.substr(extract_substring_begin
, extract_substring_end - extract_substring_begin)
<< std::endl;
std::cout << std::endl;
}
This is the main function to run the overloaded functions:
#include <regex>
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
int main()
{
const std::string start_string
= "/home/toto/FILE_mysymbol_EVENT.DAT";
const std::string string_regex_extract_substring_template(
".*FILE_(\\w+)_EVENT\\.DAT.*");
const std::string string_regex_extract_substring_template2(
"[^_]*_([^_]*)_");
ExtractSubString(start_string, string_regex_extract_substring_template);
ExtractSubString(start_string, string_regex_extract_substring_template2);
const std::string before_substring = "/home/toto/FILE_";
const std::string after_substring = "_EVENT.DAT";
ExtractSubString(start_string, before_substring, after_substring);
}
This is the result of executing the main function:
A substring extract template:
".*FILE_(\\w+)_EVENT\\.DAT.*"
Start string:
"/home/toto/FILE_mysymbol_EVENT.DAT"
match0: /home/toto/FILE_mysymbol_EVENT.DAT
match1: mysymbol
match2:
A substring extract template:
"[^_]*_([^_]*)_"
Start string:
"/home/toto/FILE_mysymbol_EVENT.DAT"
match0: /home/toto/FILE_mysymbol_
match1: mysymbol
match2:
A before substring:
"/home/toto/FILE_"
An after substring:
"_EVENT.DAT"
Start string:
"/home/toto/FILE_mysymbol_EVENT.DAT"
Extract substring:
mysymbol