Get string between 2 characters Regex

Question

I am new to regex and it really confuses me. What I am trying to accomplish is finding the string between 2 specified characters where the string should contain another specified character within it.

String Example: 'Help--Me'

In this case I would be looking for the string Help Me that's between the two apostrophes and contains -- in it.

The Regex I have currently is @"(?<=\\')(--.*?)(?=\\')" This seems to only work if the -- is at the beginning of the string Example: '--HelpMe'

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

You're very close—nice attempt. You need another wildcard string at the beginning:

@"(?<=\')(.*?--.*?)(?=\')"

This way, it'll look for a string of any characters following the ' (the minimum string, by the way, due to the non-greedy quantifier, *? ), a -- , another string of any characters (again, the minimum string), and finally the closing ' .