RegEx ignoring part of string to extract out text

Question

I have the following string:

@delimabc@delim@delim123@delim@delim456@delim

and I need to write a .Net RegEx that finds 3 matches in this example (but assume the number of matches will be variable:

• abc
• 123
• 456

How can I write a RegEx so that the expression only matches the first and second @delim, and then the third and fourth and so on?

The following will of course capture from the first to the last instance of the @delim string.

@delim(.+)+@delim

Answer 1

You could use look behind like:

(?<=@delim)\w+

(?<=@delim) is using a Positive Lookbehind which will match the characters @delim literally (case sensitive)

while \\w+ will match any word character from [a-zA-Z0-9_] . To include or exclude characters you could replace \\w by [a-zA-Z0-9_] and include the new characters or remove those that should not be evaluated in your expression.

Online Demo

Here is .NET Online Demo:

.NET Online Demo

VB.NET version

Dim sampleInput="@delimabc@delim@delim123@delim@delim456@delim"
Dim results = Regex.Matches(sampleInput,"(?<=@delim)\w+")

For Each item As Group In results
    Console.WriteLine("Line: {0}", item)
Next

C# Version

var sampleInput = "@delimabc@delim@delim123@delim@delim456@delim";
var results = Regex.Matches(sampleInput, "(?<=@delim)\\w+");

foreach (Group item in results) {
    Console.WriteLine("Line: {0}", item);
}

Updated version:

(?<=@delim)[^@].+?(?=@delim|$)

Answer 2

@delim(.+?)@delim

Try this .Set g flag.Just modifed your regex to add ? .Grab the caotures.See demo.

http://regex101.com/r/uH3tP3/1

Answer 3

You can use split on this regex:

(?:@delim)+

RegEx Demo

Alternatively replace given regex pattern by an empty string .