How to make a pattern using regex like below?

Question

I would like to make a pattern.

For example, my input is

string str = "15-16-00-014716 AND15- [  ] (5) Description of 16-00-014715";

Expected output is

15-16-00-014716 AND15-16-00-014715

I tried below regex:

Regex.Replace(YourString, @"\s+\[.*(?=\b\d+)","");

But the output is like

15-16-00-014716 AND15-0-014715

Answer 1

You may use

Regex.Replace(str, @"\s+\[.*?(?=\b\d+(?:-|$))", "")

See the C# demo and the regex demo .

Regex graph:

Main points:

• .* should be non-greedy ( .*? matches as few any chars as possible)
• (?:-|$) matches a - char or end of string position.