Regular Expressions

[Snarg]

Ok, I have done a good deal of reading up on these things and now my head hurts. I am looking to read in a large ammount of text and filter it for an 18 digit number. I *think* I know how to formulate my RegEx however, could someone take a look at it for me?

This should search for an 18 digit number, correct?

\b[0-9]{1,18}\b

If that is correct, what would be the proper way to include it in the function call?

[greenmachine]

That didn't seem to work for me. However, this pattern did.

$stringasdf = "this is a long string of random stuff and an 18 digit number with 4 or 5 letters on either side asdf123456789012345678ffdsa and stuff"
$result = StringRegExp ($stringasdf, "[:digit:]{18}")
MsgBox (0, "", $result)

However, as of now it only returns 1 or 0 depending on if it matched the pattern. When I set the flag to 1 or 3 (which should return an array), it didn't return an array, and instead returned a blank string (but @extended was still 1, which means that it worked). The @error was also 0.. so I don't know about that one.

Edited March 12, 2006 by greenmachine

[greenmachine]

Double-posting only because I have a new breakthrough. I solved my issue.

#include <array.au3>
$stringasdf = "this is a long string of random stuff and an 18 digit number with 4 or 5 letters on either side asdf123456789012345678ffdsa and stuff"
$result = StringRegExp ($stringasdf, "(\d){18}", 3)
If @extended = 1 Then
    _ArrayDisplay ($result, "res")
Else
    MsgBox (0, "", @error & @CRLF & @extended)
EndIf

Note: this matches 18 or more digits, and returns an array of the first 18 digits. I couldn't figure out how to limit it to 18 digits (yet). The array in this case will be the following:

[0] = 1
[1] = 2
[2] = 3
[3] = 4
[4] = 5
[5] = 6
[6] = 7
[7] = 8
[8] = 9
[9] = 0
[10]    = 1
[11]    = 2
[12]    = 3
[13]    = 4
[14]    = 5
[15]    = 6
[16]    = 7
[17]    = 8

[neogia]

Good work, greenmachine, If you just modify it so that the capture "()" includes the "{18}" specification, it will find your number of 18 digits intact, and it will find all instances of 18 digits.

$result = StringRegExp ($stringasdf, "([0-9]{18})", 3)

[greenmachine]

Well in that case you can modify it to use the class like I had in the first place:

$result = StringRegExp ($stringasdf, "([:digit:]{18})", 3)

Either way works fine.

Turns out I had been trying too many things at once with the group pattern, which was why I didn't have the {18} inside the group. I figured it should have worked inside....

Thanks for pointing that out.

[neogia]

Ah, as I was testing to find the problem, I changed "\d" to "[0-9]" in one case and forgot to change it back. Sorry, I didn't mean it as a correction..

@others: "[0-9]", "[:digit:]", and "\d" are interchangeable

Thanks greenmachine, nice work again.

[Snarg]

Once again, thank you gentlemen. And again, I find myself so close and yet, so far away.

OK, I can strip the number I need now with no problem. Now I am having trouble actualy *using* the number. I can not seem to assign the number to a variable. This is the code I am using:

$body = _IEBodyReadHTML ( $o_IE )
$result = StringRegExp ($body, "([0-9]{18})", 1)
If @extended = 1 Then
    _ArrayDisplay ($result, "res")
;MsgBox (0, "", $result)
Else
    MsgBox (0, "", @error & @CRLF & @extended)
EndIf

I would like to be able to assign the results of _ArrayDisplay to a variable. When I do that (see the commented out MsgBox line) I get a blank display. I have tried alterting the _ArrayDisplay function to no avail.

Below is the _ArrayDisplay function:

Func _ArrayDisplay(Const ByRef $avArray, $sTitle)
    Local $iCounter = 0, $sMsg = ""
    
    If (Not IsArray($avArray)) Then
        SetError(1)
        Return 0
    EndIf
    
    For $iCounter = 0 To UBound($avArray) - 1
        $sMsg = $sMsg & StringStripCR($avArray[$iCounter])
    Next
    
    MsgBox(4096, $sTitle, $sMsg)
    SetError(0)
    Return 1
EndFunc

I have messed with this line to no avail:

$sMsg = $sMsg & StringStripCR($avArray[$iCounter])

As usual, any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[greenmachine]

When the array was displayed, it should have showed (if you used my example): [0] - 123456789012345678. This means that the 18-digit string (number) is stored in the array at location 0. So, in order to access that location and save it to a separate variable, simply do this:

#include <array.au3>
$stringasdf = "this is a long string of random stuff and an 18 digit number with 4 or 5 letters on either side asdf123456789012345678ffdsa and stuff"
$result = StringRegExp ($stringasdf, "([:digit:]{18})", 3)
If @extended = 1 Then
    _ArrayDisplay ($result, "res")
    $NewVar = $result[0]; stores the numbers to $NewVar
Else
    MsgBox (0, "", @error & @CRLF & @extended)
EndIf

If you have more than 1 match, you might want to leave it in array form. You can find out how many matches were made by doing this:

MsgBox (0, "number of matches", UBound ($result))
; Note that arrays are 0-based, so the highest element would be Ubound ($result) - 1 -> in my case, ubound is 1, so the highest is 0.