正则表达式匹配“目标字符串”

Question

Environment: Visual Studio 2008 SP1

How can I write the following regex?

I'm trying to get to 'target string . The pattern is any string between [name]=' '

/*Input String*/
SET [blah] = 'AE', [blah] = 'A1A', [number] = 004 WHERE [name]='target string'


/*Current Regex*/
(?<=[?name]?=).*(?=\')

/*Current Results*/
'AE', [blah] = 'A1A', [number] = 004 WHERE [name]='target string

/*Desired Results*/
'target string

Answer 1

You need to escape your square-brackets, or else they'll be misinterpreted as creating a character class. That is, you need:

(?<=\[?name\]?=).*(?=\')

I'd also recommend changing .* to the more explicit '[^']* , just so you don't risk catching anything after the target string; and Tim Pietzcker points out (in a now-deleted comment) that you can write ' instead of \\' (near the end of the regex); so:

(?<=\[?name\]?=)'[^']*(?=')

Answer 2

Does this do it?

(?<=\[name]=).*?(?=')

Or if the target string has to be returned without the leading ('):

(?<=\[name]=').*?(?=')

Note: I assume that the target string does not have escaped apostrophes ('').

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EDIT: This does the trick with the escaped apostrophes:

(?<=\[name]=)(''|.)+?(?='([^']|$))

It will find " 'John''s pub " in

SET [blah] = 'AE', [blah] = 'A1A', [number] = 004 WHERE [name]='John''s pub'