RegEx help

[DW1]

Hi,

I am trying to find a regular expression that will allow me to limit a string to 10 characters. I know there are other ways to do this besides regex, but I am looking for a regex solution.

Thanks

[ProgAndy]

StringRegExp($String,"\A.{0,10}\Z")

[DW1]

That will test for 10 chars, but not limit it to ten chars.

I am looking for a way to use StringRegExpReplace to force it to ten chars.

Thank you for your help

how could I make this limit to 10 chars?

$string = "this1is2a3long4string"
$pattern = '???'

$regex = StringRegExpReplace( $string, $pattern, '' )

MsgBox(0, "test - string limited to 10 chars", $regex )

[SmOke_N]

StringRegExpReplace($s_string, "(.{0,10})(.*?)\z", "\1")

Edit:

Added end of string expression

Edited October 30, 2008 by SmOke_N

[DW1]

Thank you, works perfect, but what does "\1" do?

[Xenobiologist]

Thank you, works perfect, but what does "\1" do?

Everything in () is returned as a "hit".

\1 is the reference to the hit 1.

\1 = (.{0,10})

\2 would be (.*?)\z

Mega

[DW1]

Thanks a lot to both of you, SmOke and Xeno!!!

[SmOke_N]

Just FYI, StringLeft($s_string, 10) would have done the same thing.

[Richard Robertson]

Would it perhaps be more efficient to make the second group a non-capturing group?

[DW1]

Just FYI, StringLeft($s_string, 10) would have done the same thing.

It was actually not an autoit question but rather regex in general. I have a small regex utility that I use in batch file and I was having issues with the syntax.

I know there are a bunch of regex gurus (you, progandy, xeno, etc. ) on these forums, so I figured I would ask here. After all, the autoit forums are my fav

Would it perhaps be more efficient to make the second group a non-capturing group?

How can you make it a non-capturing group?

[SmOke_N]

It was actually not an autoit question but rather regex in general. I have a small regex utility that I use in batch file and I was having issues with the syntax.

I know there are a bunch of regex gurus (you, progandy, xeno, etc. ) on these forums, so I figured I would ask here. After all, the autoit forums are my fav

How can you make it a non-capturing group?

Be careful using our regex's with other types. Remember we use the PCRE engine others may or may not.

http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorial.html

In the help file shows the expression for non-capturing.

(?: ... ) Non-capturing group. Behaves just like a normal group, but does not record the matching characters in the array nor can the matched text be used for back-referencing.

[DW1]

Good to know SmOke_N, thanks.

I am unsure what engine the exe that I am calling is using, but it did work correctly with the only modification being: Instead of using "\1" I have to use "$1".

Thanks again