Regex expression to replace text between start and end characters, but keep characters too

Question

How can I replace text using c# regex that starts with "<" and ends with ">", but keep start and end characters and suround found match with {} brackets? All occurrences in text should be replaced.
For example:
This is <my> long <text> should become
This is {<my>} long {<text>} .

Answer 1

Thomas is correct -- in this case, you do not need a regular expression. However, if you insist on using one (or want to expand this logic in the future to handle a range of characters), here it is:

var inputString = "This is <my> long <text>";
var newInputString = Regex.Replace(inputString, "(<[^>]+>)", "{$1}");

This regex assumes you are capturing at least one character between the angled brackets.

Answer 2

Why don't you use just replace ;

string text = "This is <my> long <text>";
var replacedText = text.Replace("<", "{<").Replace(">", ">}");

If you have encoded text, you can decode it first;

string text = "This is <my> long <text&gt";
var replacedText = WebUtility.HtmlDecode(text).Replace("<", "{<").Replace(">", ">}");