Regex issue

[Teslafreak]

I am trying to use StringRegExp to match a UNC path, and just can't get it to work. If I try

$testserv = "\\server"
If StringRegExp($testserv,$testserv) Then
    <some code>
EndIf

That works, as does

$testserv = "^\\server$"
If StringRegExp($testserv,$testserv) Then
    <some code>
EndIf

I am really trying to anchor the start and end. I cannot get it to work as such though

$testserv = "\\server"
If StringRegExp($testserv,'^'&$testserv&'$') Then
    <some code>
EndIf

Or as the more likely (to me anyway)

$testserv = "\\server"
$teststr = "*" & $testserv & "$"
If StringRegExp($testserv, $teststr) Then
    <some code>
EndIf

I just can't seem to figure out how to concatenate the start and end anchors into a string for testing, or concatenate the whole thing in the actual function for testing. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance to everyone.

[jchd]

Your current attempts amount to the following tautological:

If $testserv == $testserv Then

<some code>

EndIf

I don't know but you may be willing something esle. What exactly?

[Malkey]

You need to escape to escape character twice.

$testserv = "\\server"
$teststr = "\\" & $testserv
If StringRegExp($testserv, $teststr) Then
    MsgBox(0, "", "Match", 2)
EndIf

[jchd]

You're taking the fun out of it...

[PsaltyDS]

I'm sure you meant the first $testserv to be a different variable to evaluate, right?

Also, your pattern is only checking against "\server" with a single backslash because that happens to be the escape symbol for a pattern. To test double backslash, escape it twice: "\\\\server"

$testserv = "\\server"
$sPatt = "(?i)^\\\\server$"

If StringRegExp($testserv, $sPatt) Then
    ConsoleWrite("True" & @LF)
Else
    ConsoleWrite("False" & @LF)
EndIf

You're taking the fun out of it...

Oh, sorry!

Edited April 21, 2010 by PsaltyDS

[Teslafreak]

Your current attempts amount to the following tautological:

If $testserv == $testserv Then

<some code>

EndIf

I don't know but you may be willing something esle. What exactly?

This was a simplistic example (and perhaps not the best one), I get what you mean though. I will need a regex option later though.

You need to escape to escape character twice.

$testserv = "\\server"
$teststr = "\\" & $testserv
If StringRegExp($testserv, $teststr) Then
    MsgBox(0, "", "Match", 2)
EndIf

That did it, I don't know why it hadn't thought to escape those, but thanks!

[jchd]

OK for the escapes, but my point remains.

Your post said "I am really trying to anchor the start and end. I cannot get it to work as such though"

If you do what you say and have the server name (with the required number of reverse-solidus) in between without anything else, that amounts to testing things much more simply:

Local $input ;; <-- say you get the server name here, from input or grabbing it from a logfile or whatever.

Local $server = "\\servername"

If $input = $server Then <some code>

I mean in regexp, the pattern "^xxx$" litterally means the source string is equal to 'xxx'.

BTW, if you find it painful to care about manually escaping backslashes and any other metacharacters in a path for instance, that you whish to include in a pattern, you can use the metacharacter-suppression metacharacters \Q and \E. In plain:

$mySubPattern = "\QNow, this string may contain balls-breaking metacharacters (like dots . stars * backslashes \ and others ] ^ + | [ $ \x00 ...) and I don't care! Do you see that?\E"

[Teslafreak]

I'm sure you meant the first $testserv to be a different variable to evaluate, right?

Nope, I meant to show that it was indeed matching against itself, which is part of what was confusing me, since it wouldn't have been properly escaped there. I am guessing it matched anyway because in that instance it didn't have start and end anchors, so it just matched the middle.

OK for the escapes, but my point remains.

Your post said "I am really trying to anchor the start and end. I cannot get it to work as such though"

If you do what you say and have the server name (with the required number of reverse-solidus) in between without anything else, that amounts to testing things much more simply:

Local $input ;; <-- say you get the server name here, from input or grabbing it from a logfile or whatever.

Local $server = "\\servername"

If $input = $server Then <some code>

I mean in regexp, the pattern "^xxx$" litterally means the source string is equal to 'xxx'.

BTW, if you find it painful to care about manually escaping backslashes and any other metacharacters in a path for instance, that you whish to include in a pattern, you can use the metacharacter-suppression metacharacters \Q and \E. In plain:

$mySubPattern = "\QNow, this string may contain balls-breaking metacharacters (like dots . stars * backslashes \ and others ] ^ + | [ $ \x00 ...) and I don't care! Do you see that?\E"

Again, I get it, and again, it was a crappy example on my behalf. I will need to do some more tricky stuff later between the variable and the end anchor, so I did need to know what I was missing. I'm happy that someone knew what I meant, but I would agree with you given the information. It would not only be easier to use ==, it would also likely be more efficient from a processing perspective. It just wouldn't apply later on.

Thanks again, everyone that replied.