正则表达式-匹配多个组

Question

I'm trying to extract from the following example string (all in one line):

First Note Type[br]03/11/2015          12:51:24            USR123[br]Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country[br]Second Note Type[br]03/11/2015          16:26:03            USR456[br]The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

2 matches with 5 groups each , eg:

Match 1 :

• G1 -> 'First Note Type'
• G2 -> '03/11/2015'
• G3 -> '12:51:24'
• G4 -> 'USR123'
• G5 -> 'Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country[br]'

Match 2 :

• G1 -> 'Second Note Type'
• G2 -> '03/11/2015'
• G3 -> '16:26:03'
• G4 -> 'USR456'
• G5 -> 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.'

So far I've only managed to match the first 4 groups using the following expression:

([a-zA-Z\s]+)\\[br\\\]([0-9]+/[0-9]+/[0-9]+)\s+([0-9]+:[0-9]+:[0-9]+)\s+([a-zA-Z0-9]+)\\[br\\]

could not get also the fifth (G5) group, I've tried adding a (.+) but will result in only a single match instead of n

can anyone point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

When you use (.+) , it matches 1 or more symbols other than a newline, as many times as possible (so, it will eat up everything up to the end of line).

You can match it with the following regex:

([a-zA-Z\s]+)\[br]([0-9]+/[0-9]+/[0-9]+)\s+([0-9]+:[0-9]+:[0-9]+)\s+([a-zA-Z0-9]+)\[br]([^[]*(?:\[(?!br])[^[]*)*(?:\[br])?)

See regex demo

I added ([^[]*(?:\\[(?!br])[^[]*)*(?:\\[br])?) part. It matches everything other than [br] . A more detailed breakdown:

• [^[]* - match 0 or more characters other than [
• (?:\\[(?!br])[^[]*)* - match 0 or more sequences of...
  • \\[(?!br]) - a literal [ not followed with br]
  • [^[]* - 0 or more characters other than [ .
• (?:\\[br])? - matches 1 or 0 times a literal sequence [br]

Results obtained with your string as input: