Regex select data within quotations

Question

I have a string: "var1=\\"Some Data\\";var2=\\"More Data\\" and I would like to select the data within the quotes as well as the data to the left of it(the variable name).

For example:

"var1" = "Some Data", "var2" = "More Data"

The commands are semi-colon delimited and the variable's value is always contained within quotations. However the variables are based on user input and may also contain other quotations or semi-colons. I have attempted to do this with Split and Substring however they were affected by the user input. How would I do this without it being affected by the user input ?

Edit: I didn't think to mention that I already have an expression that selects data within the quotes. However I'm not familiar enough with Regex to make it select the variable name too. The current Regex expression is: (\\".*\\")

Answer 1

The Regex I decided to use was: ;(?=(?:[^\\"]*\\"[^\\"]*\\")*[^\\"]*$) . That selects the entire command ( variableName="Hello World" ) and then use Substring to select the data before and after the equals. I then use trim to remove the quotes. It works perfectly, and I am able to use quotations that are escaped within the main quotations.

I take no credit for that Regex command. I found it on the web somewhere(I will post it here when I remember where).

Thanks for all the answers and links anyway.

Answer 2

I believe this will do what you're after:

"(.+)"\s?=\s?"(.+)"

example: Regex Hero

Regex quantifiers + and * are greedy by default and will look for the longest match.

You can add additional test cases with more or no white space between the quoted strings and = to make sure that it will satisfy your needs.

Edit: This will not work for multiple instances on the same line, as it relies on the greediness of the quantifiers.