How to extract values in string by using Regular Expression

Question

I have a string which looks like:

(Service=[MyCar]&(Type=[News]|Type=[Review]))

I need to get the values of Type, there could be 1 type or multiple types.

My current regular expression is:

/Type=[(News|Review|Video)]*/g

It doesn't return me the values, instead it returns "Type="

Answer 1

The square brackets [] have a special meaning in regex, so they need to be escaped:

Type=\[(News|Review|Video)\]

Compare this

With this

In the first case you are actually matching a single character in the list (News|RviVdo) with [(News|Review|Video)]

For each match, you will find the text you are looking for in Group[1]

Answer 2

Use MatchCollection and prefix brackets [] with a backslash \\

        string input = "(Service=[MyCar]&(Type=[News]|Type=[Review]))";

        string pattern = @"Type=\[(News|Review|Video)\]";

        MatchCollection matches = Regex.Matches(input, pattern);
        foreach(Match match in matches)
        {
            foreach(Group group in match.Groups)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(group);
            }
        }

Answer 3

A pattern like this

Type=[(\\w*)]

will give you the groups. You can look at the expression here . Also you can test this C# code at dotnetfiddle

using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

public class Program
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        string input = "(Service=[CarSales]&(Type=[News]|Type=[Review]))";

        string pattern = @"Type=\[(\w*)\]";

        MatchCollection matches = Regex.Matches(input, pattern);


        foreach(Match match in matches)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(match.Groups[1].Value);
        }


    }
} 

You can find some information about the groups and the index on the MSDN "Match.Groups Property" page.