RegEx to replace entire string with first two values

Question

I'm trying to come up with a regex expression to replace an entire string with just the first two values. Examples:

• Entire String: AO SMITH 100108283 4500W/240V SCREW-IN ELEMENT, 11"

• First Two Values: AO SMITH

• Entire String: BRA14X18HEBU / P11-042 / 310-470NL BRASS 1/4 x 1/8 HEX BUSHING

• First Two Values: BRA14X18HEBU / P11-042

• Entire String: TWO-HOLE PIPE STRAP 4" 008004EG 72E 4

• First Two Values: TWO-HOLE PIPE

The caveat is I'm wanting to preserve any kind of special characters and not count them, like "/"'s and "-"'s. The current code I've written does not, instead leaves the new values entirely blank. Only the first example above works.

Here's what I've got so far:

Matching Value:

^(\w+) +(\w+).+$

New Value:

$1 $2

Answer 1

One option could be using a single capture group and use that in the replacement.

^(\w+(?:-\w+)?(?: +\/)? +\w+(?:-\w+)?).+

The pattern matches:

• ^ Start of string
• ( Capture group 1
  • \w+(?:-\w+)? Match 1+ word charss with an optional part to match a - and 1+ word chars
  • (?: +\/)? Optionally match /
  • +\w+(?:-\w+)? Match 1+ word charss with an optional part to match a - and 1+ word chars
• ) Close group 1
• .+ Match 1+ times any char (the rest of the line)

If there can be more than 1 hyphen, you can use * instead of ?

Regex demo

Output

AO SMITH
BRA14X18HEBU / P11-042
TWO-HOLE PIPE

A broader match could be matching non word chars in between the words

^(\w+(?:-\w+)*[\W\r\n]+\w+(?:-\w+)*).+

Regex demo