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I could use some help with a Regex pattern. I am attempting to extract some names and addresses (US format) from some free form text. Examples:

Jane Doe
PO Box 1234
Pensacola, FL 32524


Jane Doe
123 Sunset Blvd
Apt 456
Pensacola, FL 32524


Jane Doe
555 Any Street
Pensacola, FL 32524-1234

Second address line is optional. There are instances where the city or state may be missing. I came up with the following pattern through research / trial & error, but it isn't working exactly as I desire:

(.+)(?>\r\n)(.+)(?>\r\n)(.+)(?>\r\n)?(.+)?,\h+(\w+)? ([-\d]+)

When the second address line is missing, the value for city ends up in the wrong place. Suggestions on how I can fix / improve the pattern?

TIA, Dan

 

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Danp2,

First rule when asking for SRE help - give an example of what you want as the result. ;)

Each of those addresses has a second line, so the "when second line is missing" comment is not a great deal of help. What exactly do you want to see returned from the RegEx? :huh:

M23

Public_Domain.png.2d871819fcb9957cf44f4514551a2935.png Any of my own code posted anywhere on the forum is available for use by others without any restriction of any kind

Open spoiler to see my UDFs:

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ArrayMultiColSort ---- Sort arrays on multiple columns
ChooseFileFolder ---- Single and multiple selections from specified path treeview listing
Date_Time_Convert -- Easily convert date/time formats, including the language used
ExtMsgBox --------- A highly customisable replacement for MsgBox
GUIExtender -------- Extend and retract multiple sections within a GUI
GUIFrame ---------- Subdivide GUIs into many adjustable frames
GUIListViewEx ------- Insert, delete, move, drag, sort, edit and colour ListView items
GUITreeViewEx ------ Check/clear parent and child checkboxes in a TreeView
Marquee ----------- Scrolling tickertape GUIs
NoFocusLines ------- Remove the dotted focus lines from buttons, sliders, radios and checkboxes
Notify ------------- Small notifications on the edge of the display
Scrollbars ----------Automatically sized scrollbars with a single command
StringSize ---------- Automatically size controls to fit text
Toast -------------- Small GUIs which pop out of the notification area

 

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Danp2,

I would not bother with an SRE for this - just split the address and read the required lines: :)

#include <StringConstants.au3>

Global $aAddress[3] = ["Jane Doe" & @CRLF & "PO Box 1234" & @CRLF & "Pensacola, FL 32524", _
                "Jane Doe" & @CRLF & "123 Sunset Blvd" & @CRLF & "Apt 456" & @CRLF & "Pensacola, FL 32524", _
                "Jane Doe" & @CRLF & "555 Any Street" & @CRLF & "Pensacola, FL 32524-1234"]

For $i = 0 To 2
    $aSplit = StringSplit($aAddress[$i], @CRLF, $STR_ENTIRESPLIT)
    ; Combine the first 2 and last lines
    $sExtract = $aSplit[1] & @CRLF & $aSplit[2] & @CRLF & $aSplit[$aSplit[0]]
    ConsoleWrite($sExtract & @CRLF & @CRLF)
Next
Now wait for a real SRE guru to show you how it should be done! ;)

M23

Public_Domain.png.2d871819fcb9957cf44f4514551a2935.png Any of my own code posted anywhere on the forum is available for use by others without any restriction of any kind

Open spoiler to see my UDFs:

Spoiler

ArrayMultiColSort ---- Sort arrays on multiple columns
ChooseFileFolder ---- Single and multiple selections from specified path treeview listing
Date_Time_Convert -- Easily convert date/time formats, including the language used
ExtMsgBox --------- A highly customisable replacement for MsgBox
GUIExtender -------- Extend and retract multiple sections within a GUI
GUIFrame ---------- Subdivide GUIs into many adjustable frames
GUIListViewEx ------- Insert, delete, move, drag, sort, edit and colour ListView items
GUITreeViewEx ------ Check/clear parent and child checkboxes in a TreeView
Marquee ----------- Scrolling tickertape GUIs
NoFocusLines ------- Remove the dotted focus lines from buttons, sliders, radios and checkboxes
Notify ------------- Small notifications on the edge of the display
Scrollbars ----------Automatically sized scrollbars with a single command
StringSize ---------- Automatically size controls to fit text
Toast -------------- Small GUIs which pop out of the notification area

 

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Having fought with international addresses for a long time, I wouldn't be surprised if even addresses in "US format" would prove very hard to deal with in general. Sure one can come up with a fairly good pattern but I strongly suspect that you'll get exceptions that would ruin your efforts. Here a more pedestrian approach is best, AFAICT.

This wonderful site allows debugging and testing regular expressions (many flavors available). An absolute must have in your bookmarks.
Another excellent RegExp tutorial. Don't forget downloading your copy of up-to-date pcretest.exe and pcregrep.exe here
RegExp tutorial: enough to get started
PCRE v8.33 regexp documentation latest available release and currently implemented in AutoIt beta.

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SQLite Expert (freeware Personal Edition or payware Pro version) is a very useful SQLite database manager.
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SQL tutorial (covers "generic" SQL, but most of it applies to SQLite as well)
A work-in-progress SQLite3 tutorial. Don't miss other LxyzTHW pages!
SQLite official website with full documentation (may be newer than the SQLite library that comes standard with AutoIt)

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Danp2,

Second rule (applicable to all requests for help) - give all the necessary data when posing the question so people do not waste their time coding solutions which are obviously not going to work. :mad2:

M23

Public_Domain.png.2d871819fcb9957cf44f4514551a2935.png Any of my own code posted anywhere on the forum is available for use by others without any restriction of any kind

Open spoiler to see my UDFs:

Spoiler

ArrayMultiColSort ---- Sort arrays on multiple columns
ChooseFileFolder ---- Single and multiple selections from specified path treeview listing
Date_Time_Convert -- Easily convert date/time formats, including the language used
ExtMsgBox --------- A highly customisable replacement for MsgBox
GUIExtender -------- Extend and retract multiple sections within a GUI
GUIFrame ---------- Subdivide GUIs into many adjustable frames
GUIListViewEx ------- Insert, delete, move, drag, sort, edit and colour ListView items
GUITreeViewEx ------ Check/clear parent and child checkboxes in a TreeView
Marquee ----------- Scrolling tickertape GUIs
NoFocusLines ------- Remove the dotted focus lines from buttons, sliders, radios and checkboxes
Notify ------------- Small notifications on the edge of the display
Scrollbars ----------Automatically sized scrollbars with a single command
StringSize ---------- Automatically size controls to fit text
Toast -------------- Small GUIs which pop out of the notification area

 

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Danp2,

Following on from mikell's comment: is there any way you can distinguish the address lines from the rest of the text? Are they the only lines surrounded by blank lines? Are they in a specific place in the document? Do they have an indentation? Anything of that sort would help extract those particular lines for further analysis. :huh:

M23

Public_Domain.png.2d871819fcb9957cf44f4514551a2935.png Any of my own code posted anywhere on the forum is available for use by others without any restriction of any kind

Open spoiler to see my UDFs:

Spoiler

ArrayMultiColSort ---- Sort arrays on multiple columns
ChooseFileFolder ---- Single and multiple selections from specified path treeview listing
Date_Time_Convert -- Easily convert date/time formats, including the language used
ExtMsgBox --------- A highly customisable replacement for MsgBox
GUIExtender -------- Extend and retract multiple sections within a GUI
GUIFrame ---------- Subdivide GUIs into many adjustable frames
GUIListViewEx ------- Insert, delete, move, drag, sort, edit and colour ListView items
GUITreeViewEx ------ Check/clear parent and child checkboxes in a TreeView
Marquee ----------- Scrolling tickertape GUIs
NoFocusLines ------- Remove the dotted focus lines from buttons, sliders, radios and checkboxes
Notify ------------- Small notifications on the edge of the display
Scrollbars ----------Automatically sized scrollbars with a single command
StringSize ---------- Automatically size controls to fit text
Toast -------------- Small GUIs which pop out of the notification area

 

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If you use option 4, in stringregexp, you can then fix the ubound of the array of arrays as the city, state, zip, and depending on the size of the array of arrays, you can infer if an address2 exists.

IEbyXPATH-Grab IE DOM objects by XPATH IEscriptRecord-Makings of an IE script recorder ExcelFromXML-Create Excel docs without excel installed GetAllWindowControls-Output all control data on a given window.
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The best thing I ever learned about RegEx was knowing when not to use it. This is one of those places where a RegEx isn't going to help all that much, and may in fact take far longer to develop than just a FileReadToArray and parsing each line.

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Back up and restore Windows user files _Array.au3 - Modified array functions that include support for 2D arrays.  -  ColorChooser - An add-on for SciTE that pops up a color dialog so you can select and paste a color code into a script.  -  Customizable Splashscreen GUI w/Progress Bar - Create a custom "splash screen" GUI with a progress bar and custom label.  -  _FileGetProperty - Retrieve the properties of a file  -  SciTE Toolbar - A toolbar demo for use with the SciTE editor  -  GUIRegisterMsg demo - Demo script to show how to use the Windows messages to interact with controls and your GUI.  -   Latin Square password generator

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