What Regex can strip e.g. "note:" and "firstName: " from the left of a string?
- by Edward Tanguay
I need to strip the "label" off the front of strings, e.g.
note: this is a note
needs to return:
note
and
this is a note
I've produced the following code example but am having trouble with the regexes.
What code do I need in the two ???????? areas below so that I get the desired results shown in the comments?
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
namespace TestRegex8822
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
List<string> lines = new List<string>();
lines.Add("note: this is a note");
lines.Add("test: just a test");
lines.Add("test:\t\t\tjust a test");
lines.Add("firstName: Jim"); //"firstName" IS a label because it does NOT contain a space
lines.Add("She said this to him: follow me."); //this is NOT a label since there is a space before the colon
lines.Add("description: this is the first description");
lines.Add("description:this is the second description"); //no space after colon
lines.Add("this is a line with no label");
foreach (var line in lines)
{
Console.WriteLine(StringHelpers.GetLabelFromLine(line));
Console.WriteLine(StringHelpers.StripLabelFromLine(line));
Console.WriteLine("--");
//note
//this is a note
//--
//test
//just a test
//--
//test
//just a test
//--
//firstName
//Jim
//--
//
//She said this to him: follow me.
//--
//description
//this is the first description
//--
//description
//this is the first description
//--
//
//this is a line with no label
//--
}
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
public static class StringHelpers
{
public static string GetLabelFromLine(this string line)
{
string label = line.GetMatch(@"^?:(\s)"); //???????????????
if (!label.IsNullOrEmpty())
return label;
else
return "";
}
public static string StripLabelFromLine(this string line)
{
return ...//???????????????
}
public static bool IsNullOrEmpty(this string line)
{
return String.IsNullOrEmpty(line);
}
}
public static class RegexHelpers
{
public static string GetMatch(this string text, string regex)
{
Match match = Regex.Match(text, regex);
if (match.Success)
{
string theMatch = match.Groups[0].Value;
return theMatch;
}
else
{
return null;
}
}
}
}
