Given an RE, derive the largest substring match - regex

I'm looking for a bit of code that will:
Given regular expression E, derive the longest string X
such that for every S, X is a substring of S iff S will match E
examples:
E = "a", X = "a"
E = "^a$", X = "a"
E = "a(b|c)", X = "a"
E = "[ab]", X = ""
context: I want to match some regular expressions against a data
store that only supports substring searching. It would be nice
to optimize the regular expression searching by applying a substring
search to the data store to reduce the amount of data transferred
as much as possible.
example 2:
If I want to catch "error foo", "error bar", "error baz", I might specify
error: (foo|bar|baz)
and send
search "error: "
to the data store, and then regexping the returned items.
Thanks!

In general terms, you could try to split the regex at all non-unique ((a|b), [ab]) matches, and then look for the longest string in the resulting array. Something like
$foo = longest(regex_split($regex, '(\(.*?\|.*?\))|(\[.*?\])'));

Maybe convert RE to a finite state automata and look for the longest part that needs to be present in a path between start and finish states... Geometric thinking with a graph can be easier to you, at least it is in my case.

Related

regular expression to check ends with a digit

EDIT: Hi I want to parse this log
String log1 = "Yellow A Yellow Flow Meter -4363.00 ---> -4194.00 pulse" ;
I used this pattern
String maxPattern11 = "([\\w.*-?\\d.$]+)([\\s]+['--->'|'-->']+[\\s]+)([-?][\\d.]+\\s[\\w]+)";
For the string I want to parse like a series of words separated by white space and ends with a +ve or a -ve digit.
Please reply whats wrong in the pattern
Instead of a difficult regular expression, here is another idea:
String[] words = logLine.split("\\s+");
int n = words.length;
if (n > 3 && words[n - 3].equals("--->")) {
}
It may be more code than the regular expression, but it is much easier to understand.

How can I extract a file name based on number string?

I have a list of filenames in a struct array, example:
4x1 struct array with fields:
name
date
bytes
isdir
datenum
where files.name
ans =
ts.01094000.crest.csv
ans =
ts.01100600.crest.csv
etc.
I have another list of numbers (say, 1094000). And I want to find the corresponding file name from the struct.
Please note, that 1094000 doesn't have preceding 0. Often there might be other numbers. So I want to search for '1094000' and find that name.
I know I can do it using Regex. But I have never used that before. And finding it difficult to write for numbers instead of text using strfind. Any suggestion or another method is welcome.
What I have tried:
regexp(files.name,'ts.(\d*)1094000.crest.csv','match');
I think the regular expression you'd want is more like
filenames = {'ts.01100600.crest.csv','ts.01094000.crest.csv'};
matches = regexp(filenames, ['ts\.0*' num2str(1094000) '\.crest\.csv']);
matches = ~cellfun('isempty', matches);
filenames(matches)
For a solution with strfind...
Pre-16b:
match = ~cellfun('isempty', strfind({files.name}, num2str(1094000)),'UniformOutput',true)
files(match)
16b+:
match = contains({files.name}, string(1094000))
files(match)
However, the strfind way might have issues if the number you are looking for exists in unexpected places such as looking for 10 in ["01000" "00101"].
If your filenames match the pattern ts.NUMBER.crest.csv, then in 16b+ you could do:
str = {files.name};
str = extractBetween(str,4,'.');
str = strip(str,'left','0');
matches = str == string(1094000);
files(matches)

regex with all components optionals, how to avoid empty matches

I have to process a comma separated string which contains triplets of values and translate them to runtime types,the input looks like:
"1x2y3z,80r160g255b,48h30m50s,1x3z,255b,1h,..."
So each substring should be transformed this way:
"1x2y3z" should become Vector3 with x = 1, y = 2, z = 3
"80r160g255b" should become Color with r = 80, g = 160, b = 255
"48h30m50s" should become Time with h = 48, m = 30, s = 50
The problem I'm facing is that all the components are optional (but they preserve order) so the following strings are also valid Vector3, Color and Time values:
"1x3z" Vector3 x = 1, y = 0, z = 3
"255b" Color r = 0, g = 0, b = 255
"1h" Time h = 1, m = 0, s = 0
What I have tried so far?
All components optional
((?:\d+A)?(?:\d+B)?(?:\d+C)?)
The A, B and C are replaced with the correct letter for each case, the expression works almost well but it gives twice the expected results (one match for the string and another match for an empty string just after the first match), for example:
"1h1m1s" two matches [1]: "1h1m1s" [2]: ""
"11x50z" two matches [1]: "11x50z" [2]: ""
"11111h" two matches [1]: "11111h" [2]: ""
This isn't unexpected... after all an empty string matches the expression when ALL of the components are empty; so in order to fix this issue I've tried the following:
1 to 3 quantifier
((?:\d+[ABC]){1,3})
But now, the expression matches strings with wrong ordering or even repeated components!:
"1s1m1h" one match, should not match at all! (wrong order)
"11z50z" one match, should not match at all! (repeated components)
"1r1r1b" one match, should not match at all! (repeated components)
As for my last attempt, I've tried this variant of my first expression:
Match from begin ^ to the end $
^((?:\d+A)?(?:\d+B)?(?:\d+C)?)$
And it works better than the first version but it still matches the empty string plus I should first tokenize the input and then pass each token to the expression in order to assure that the test string could match the begin (^) and end ($) operators.
EDIT: Lookahead attempt (thanks to Casimir et Hippolyte)
After reading and (try to) understanding the regex lookahead concept and with the help of Casimir et Hippolyte answer I've tried the suggested expression:
\b(?=[^,])(?=.)((?:\d+A)?(?:\d+B)?(?:\d+C)?)\b
Against the following test string:
"48h30m50s,1h,1h1m1s,11111h,1s1m1h,1h1h1h,1s,1m,1443s,adfank,12322134445688,48h"
And the results were amazing! it is able to detect complete valid matches flawlessly (other expressions gave me 3 matches on "1s1m1h" or "1h1h1h" which weren't intended to be matched at all). Unfortunately it captures emtpy matches everytime a unvalid match is found so a "" is detected just before "1s1m1h", "1h1h1h", "adfank" and "12322134445688", so I modified the Lookahead condition to get the expression below:
\b(?=(?:\d+[ABC]){1,3})(?=.)((?:\d+A)?(?:\d+B)?(?:\d+C)?)\b
It gets rid of the empty matches in any string which doesn't match (?:\d+[ABC]){1,3}) so the empty matches just before "adfank" and "12322134445688" are gone but the ones just before "1s1m1h", "1h1h1h" are stil detected.
So the question is: Is there any regular expression which matches three triplet values in a given order where all component is optional but should be composed of at least one component and doesn't match empty strings?
The regex tool I'm using is the C++11 one.
Yes, you can add a lookahead at the begining to ensure there is at least one character:
^(?=.)((?:\d+A)?(?:\d+B)?(?:\d+C)?)$
If you need to find this kind of substring in a larger string (so without to tokenize before), you can remove the anchors and use a more explicit subpattern in a lookahead:
(?=\d+[ABC])((?:\d+A)?(?:\d+B)?(?:\d+C)?)
In this case, to avoid false positive (since you are looking for very small strings that can be a part of something else), you can add word-boundaries to the pattern:
\b(?=\d+[ABC])((?:\d+A)?(?:\d+B)?(?:\d+C)?)\b
Note: in a comma delimited string: (?=\d+[ABC]) can be replaced by (?=[^,])
I think this might do the trick.
I am keying on either the beginning of the string to match ^ or the comma separator , for fix the start of each match: (?:^|,).
Example:
#include <regex>
#include <iostream>
const std::regex r(R"~((?:^|,)((?:\d+[xrh])?(?:\d+[ygm])?(?:\d+[zbs])?))~");
int main()
{
std::string test = "1x2y3z,80r160g255b,48h30m50s,1x3z,255b";
std::sregex_iterator iter(test.begin(), test.end(), r);
std::sregex_iterator end_iter;
for(; iter != end_iter; ++iter)
std::cout << iter->str(1) << '\n';
}
Output:
1x2y3z
80r160g255b
48h30m50s
1x3z
255b
Is that what you are after?
EDIT:
If you really want to go to town and make empty expressions unmatched then as far as I can tell you have to put in every permutation like this:
const std::string A = "(?:\\d+[xrh])";
const std::string B = "(?:\\d+[ygm])";
const std::string C = "(?:\\d+[zbs])";
const std::regex r("(?:^|,)(" + A + B + C + "|" + A + B + "|" + A + C + "|" + B + C + "|" + A + "|" + B + "|" + C + ")");

regex how can I split this word?

I have a list of several phrases in the following format
thisIsAnExampleSentance
hereIsAnotherExampleWithMoreWordsInIt
and I'm trying to end up with
This Is An Example Sentance
Here Is Another Example With More Words In It
Each phrase has the white space condensed and the first letter is forced to lowercase.
Can I use regex to add a space before each A-Z and have the first letter of the phrase be capitalized?
I thought of doing something like
([a-z]+)([A-Z])([a-z]+)([A-Z])([a-z]+) // etc
$1 $2$3 $4$5 // etc
but on 50 records of varying length, my idea is a poor solution. Is there a way to regex in a way that will be more dynamic? Thanks
A Java fragment I use looks like this (now revised):
result = source.replaceAll("(?<=^|[a-z])([A-Z])|([A-Z])(?=[a-z])", " $1$2");
result = result.substring(0, 1).toUpperCase() + result.substring(1);
This, by the way, converts the string givenProductUPCSymbol into Given Product UPC Symbol - make sure this is fine with the way you use this type of thing
Finally, a single line version could be:
result = source.substring(0, 1).toUpperCase() + source(1).replaceAll("(?<=^|[a-z])([A-Z])|([A-Z])(?=[a-z])", " $1$2");
Also, in an Example similar to one given in the question comments, the string hiMyNameIsBobAndIWantAPuppy will be changed to Hi My Name Is Bob And I Want A Puppy
For the space problem it's easy if your language supports zero-width-look-behind
var result = Regex.Replace(#"thisIsAnExampleSentanceHereIsAnotherExampleWithMoreWordsInIt", "(?<=[a-z])([A-Z])", " $1");
or even if it doesn't support them
var result2 = Regex.Replace(#"thisIsAnExampleSentanceHereIsAnotherExampleWithMoreWordsInIt", "([a-z])([A-Z])", "$1 $2");
I'm using C#, but the regexes should be usable in any language that support the replace using the $1...$n .
But for the lower-to-upper case you can't do it directly in Regex. You can get the first character through a regex like: ^[a-z] but you can't convet it.
For example in C# you could do
var result4 = Regex.Replace(result, "^([a-z])", m =>
{
return m.ToString().ToUpperInvariant();
});
using a match evaluator to change the input string.
You could then even fuse the two together
var result4 = Regex.Replace(#"thisIsAnExampleSentanceHereIsAnotherExampleWithMoreWordsInIt", "^([a-z])|([a-z])([A-Z])", m =>
{
if (m.Groups[1].Success)
{
return m.ToString().ToUpperInvariant();
}
else
{
return m.Groups[2].ToString() + " " + m.Groups[3].ToString();
}
});
A Perl example with unicode character support:
s/\p{Lu}/ $&/g;
s/^./\U$&/;

Regular Expression - All words that begin and end in different letters

I'm having trouble with this regular expression:
Construct a regular expression defining the following language over alphabet
Σ = { a,b }
L6 = {All words that begin and end in different letters}
Here are some examples of regular expressions I was able to solve:
1. L1 = {all words of even length ending in ab}
(aa + ab + ba + bb)*(ab)
2. L2 = {all words that DO NOT have the substring ab}
b*a*
Would this work:
(a.*b)|(b.*a)
Or said in Kleene way:
a(a+b)*b+b(a+b)*a
This should do it:
"^((a.*b)|(b.*a))$"
1- Write a Regular expression for each of the following languages: (a)language of all those strings which end with substrings 'ab' and have odd length. (b)language of all those strings which do not contain the substring 'abb'.
2- Construct a deterministic FSA for each of the following languages: (a)languages of all those strings in which second last symbol is 'b'. (b)language of all those strings whose length is odd,but contain even number if b's.
(aa+ab+ba+bb)∗(a+b)ab
It can choose any number of even length and have any character from a and b, and then end at string ab.