Regular expressions in swift - swift

Question

I'm bit confused by NSRegularExpression in swift, can any one help me?
task:1 given ("name","john","name of john")
then I should get ["name","john","name of john"]. Here I should avoid the brackets.
task:2 given ("name"," john","name of john")
then I should get ["name","john","name of john"]. Here I should avoid the brackets and extra spaces and finally get array of strings.
task:3 given key = value // comment
then I should get ["key","value","comment"]. Here I should get only strings in the line by avoiding = and //
I have tried below code for task 1 but not passed.
let string = "(name,john,string for user name)"
let pattern = "(?:\\w.*)"
do {
let regex = try NSRegularExpression(pattern: pattern, options: .caseInsensitive)
let matches = regex.matches(in: string, options: [], range: NSRange(location: 0, length: string.utf16.count))
for match in matches {
if let range = Range(match.range, in: string) {
let name = string[range]
print(name)
}
}
} catch {
print("Regex was bad!")
}
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

RegEx in Swift
These posts might help you to explore regular expressions in swift:
Does a string match a pattern?
Swift extract regex matches
How can I use String slicing subscripts in Swift 4?
How to use regex with Swift?
Swift 3 - How do I extract captured groups in regular expressions?
How to group search regular expressions using swift?
Task 1 & 2
This expression might help you to match your desired outputs for both Task 1 and 2:
"(\s+)?([a-z\s]+?)(\s+)?"
Based on Rob's advice, you could much reduce the boundaries, such as the char list [a-z\s]. For example, here, we can also use:
"(\s+)?(.*?)(\s+)?"
or
"(\s+)?(.+?)(\s+)?"
to simply pass everything in between two " and/or space.
RegEx
If this wasn't your desired expression, you can modify/change your expressions in regex101.com.
RegEx Circuit
You can also visualize your expressions in jex.im:
JavaScript Demo
const regex = /"(\s+)?([a-z\s]+?)(\s+)?"/gm;
const str = `"name","john","name of john"
"name"," john","name of john"
" name "," john","name of john "
" name "," john"," name of john "`;
const subst = `\n$2`;
// The substituted value will be contained in the result variable
const result = str.replace(regex, subst);
console.log('Substitution result: ', result);
Task 3
This expression might help you to design an expression for the third task:
(.*?)([a-z\s]+)(.*?)
const regex = /(.*?)([a-z\s]+)(.*?)/gm;
const str = `key = value // comment
key = value with some text // comment`;
const subst = `$2,`;
// The substituted value will be contained in the result variable
const result = str.replace(regex, subst);
console.log('Substitution result: ', result);

Answer 2

Separate the string by non alpha numeric characters except white spaces. Then trim the elements with white spaces.
extension String {
func words() -> [String] {
return self.components(separatedBy: CharacterSet.alphanumerics.inverted.subtracting(.whitespaces))
.filter({ !$0.isEmpty })
.map({ $0.trimmingCharacters(in: .whitespaces) })
}
}
let string1 = "(name,john,string for user name)"
let string2 = "(name, john,name of john)"
let string3 = "key = value // comment"
print(string1.words())//["name", "john", "string for user name"]
print(string2.words())//["name", "john", "name of john"]
print(string3.words())//["key", "value", "comment"]

Answer 3

Here I have done with after understanding all of above comments.
let text = """
Capturing and non-capturing groups are somewhat advanced topics. You’ll encounter examples of capturing and non-capturing groups later on in the tutorial
"""
extension String {
func rex (_ expr : String)->[String] {
return try! NSRegularExpression(pattern: expr, options: [.caseInsensitive])
.matches(in: self, options: [], range: NSRange(location: 0, length: self.count))
.map {
String(self[Range($0.range, in: self)!])
}
}
}
let r = text.rex("(?:\\w+-\\w+)") // pass any rex

Answer 4

A single pattern, works for test:1...3, in Swift.
let string =
//"(name,john,string for user name)" //test:1
//#"("name"," john","name of john")"# //test:2
"key = value // comment" //test:3
let pattern = #"(?:\w+)(?:\s+\w+)*"# //Swift 5+ only
//let pattern = "(?:\\w+)(?:\\s+\\w+)*"
do {
let regex = try NSRegularExpression(pattern: pattern)
let matches = regex.matches(in: string, range: NSRange(0..<string.utf16.count))
let matchingWords = matches.map {
String(string[Range($0.range, in: string)!])
}
print(matchingWords) //(test:3)->["key", "value", "comment"]
} catch {
print("Regex was bad!")
}

Answer 5

Let’s consider:
let string = "(name,José,name is José)"
I’d suggest a regex that looks for strings where:
It’s the substring either after the ( at the start of the full string or after a comma, i.e., look behind assertion of (?<=^\(|,);
It’s the substring that does not contain , within it, i.e., [^,]+?;
It’s the substring that is terminated by either a comma or ) at the end of the full string, i.e., look ahead assertion of (?=,|\)$), and
If you want to have it skip white space before and after the substrings, throw in the \s*+, too.
Thus:
let pattern = #"(?<=^\(|,)\s*+([^,]+?)\s*+(?=,|\)$)"#
let regex = try! NSRegularExpression(pattern: pattern)
regex.enumerateMatches(in: string, range: NSRange(string.startIndex..., in: string)) { match, _, _ in
if let nsRange = match?.range(at: 1), let range = Range(nsRange, in: string) {
let substring = String(string[range])
// do something with `substring` here
}
}
Note, I’m using the Swift 5 extended string delimiters (starting with #" and ending with "#) so that I don’t have to escape my backslashes within the string. If you’re using Swift 4 or earlier, you’ll want to escape those back slashes:
let pattern = "(?<=^\\(|,)\\s*+([^,]+?)\\s*+(?=,|\\)$)"