How to use Swift NSRegularExpression to get uppercased letter? - swift

Question

I have a string like this:
"te_st" and like to replace all underscores followed by a character with the uppercased version of this character.
From "te_st" --> Found (regex: "_.") --------replace with next char (+ uppercase ("s"->"S")--------> "teSt"
From "te_st" ---> to "teSt"
From "_he_l_lo" ---> to "HeLLo"
From "an_o_t_h_er_strin_g" ---> to "anOTHErStrinG"
... but I can not really get it working using Swift's NSRegularExpression like this small snipped does:
var result = "te_st" // result should be teSt
result = try! NSRegularExpression(pattern: "_*").stringByReplacingMatches(in: result, range: NSRange(0..<result.count), withTemplate: ("$1".uppercased()))

Answer 1

There's no regular syntax to convert a match to uppercase. The code you posted is attempting to convert the string $1 to uppercase which is of course just $1. It isn't attempting to convert the value represented by the $1 match at runtime.
Here's another approach using a regular expression to find the _ followed by a lowercase letter. Those are enumerated and replaced with the uppercase letter.
extension String {
func toCamelCase() -> String {
let expr = try! NSRegularExpression(pattern: "_([a-z])")
var res = self
for match in expr.matches(in: self, range: NSRange(0..<res.count)).reversed() {
let range = Range(match.range, in: self)!
let letterRange = Range(match.range(at: 1), in: self)!
res.replaceSubrange(range, with: self[letterRange].uppercased())
}
return res
}
}
print("te_st".toCamelCase())
print("_he_l_lo".toCamelCase())
print("an_o_t_h_er_strin_g".toCamelCase())
This outputs:
teSt
HeLLo
anOTHErStrinG

Answer 2

Here is one implementation using NSRegularExpression. I use group match to get the character after _ and capitalize it and replace the string.
func capitalizeLetterAfterUnderscore(string: String) -> String {
var capitalizedString = string
guard let regularExpression = try? NSRegularExpression(pattern: "_(.)") else {
return capitalizedString
}
let matches = regularExpression.matches(in: string,
options: .reportCompletion,
range: NSMakeRange(0, string.count))
for match in matches {
let groupRange = match.range(at: 1)
let index = groupRange.location
let characterIndex = string.index(string.startIndex,
offsetBy: index)
let range = characterIndex ... characterIndex
let capitalizedCharacter = String(capitalizedString[characterIndex]).capitalized
capitalizedString = capitalizedString.replacingCharacters(in: range,
with: capitalizedCharacter)
}
capitalizedString = capitalizedString.replacingOccurrences(of: "_", with: "")
return capitalizedString
}
capitalizeLetterAfterUnderscore(string: "an_o_t_h_er_strin_g") // anOTHErStrinG
And here is other one without using regular expression. I made extension for method which could also be reused.
extension String {
func indexes(of character: String) -> [Index] {
precondition(character.count == 1, "character should be single letter string")
return enumerated().reduce([]) { (partial, component) in
let currentIndex = index(startIndex,
offsetBy: component.offset)
return String(self[currentIndex]) == character
? partial + [currentIndex]
: partial
}
}
func capitalizeLetter(after indexes: [Index]) -> String {
var modifiedString = self
for currentIndex in indexes {
guard let letterIndex = index(currentIndex,
offsetBy: 1,
limitedBy: endIndex)
else { continue }
let range = letterIndex ... letterIndex
modifiedString = modifiedString.replacingCharacters(in: range,
with: self[range].capitalized)
}
return modifiedString
}
}
let string = "an_o_t_h_er_strin_g"
let newString = string.capitalizeLetter(after: string.indexes(of: "_"))
.replacingOccurrences(of: "_",with: "")

Answer 3

You can use string range(of:, options:, range:) method with .regularExpression options to match the occurrences of "_[a-z]" and replace the subranges iterating the ranges found at reversed order by the character at the index after the range lowerbound uppercased:
let string = "an_o_t_h_er_strin_g"
let regex = "_[a-z]"
var start = string.startIndex
var ranges:[Range<String.Index>] = []
while let range = string.range(of: regex, options: .regularExpression, range: start..<string.endIndex) {
start = range.upperBound
ranges.append(range)
}
var finalString = string
for range in ranges.reversed() {
finalString.replaceSubrange(range, with: String(string[string.index(after: range.lowerBound)]).uppercased())
}
print(finalString) // "anOTHErStrinG\n"

Answer 4

The problem is that it is converting the string "$1" to upper case (which is, unsurprisingly unchanged, just "$1") and using "$1" as the template. If you want to use regex, you will have to enumerate through matches yourself.
The alternative is to split the string by _ characters and uppercase the first character of every substring (except the first) and joining it back together using reduce:
let input = "te_st"
let output = input.components(separatedBy: "_").enumerated().reduce("") { $0 + ($1.0 == 0 ? $1.1 : $1.1.uppercasedFirst()) }
Or, if your goal isn't to write code as cryptic as most regex, we can make that a tad more legible:
let output = input
.components(separatedBy: "_")
.enumerated()
.reduce("") { result, current in
if current.offset == 0 {
return current.element // because you don’t want the first component capitalized
} else {
return result + current.element.uppercasedFirst()
}
}
Resulting in:
teSt
Note, that uses this extension for capitalizing the first character:
extension String {
func uppercasedFirst(with locale: Locale? = nil) -> String {
guard count > 0 else { return self }
return String(self[startIndex]).uppercased(with: locale) + self[index(after: startIndex)...]
}
}

Answer 5

If you want to do sort of dynamic conversion with NSRegularExpression, you can subclass NSRegularExpression and override replacementString(for:in:offset:template:):
class ToCamelRegularExpression: NSRegularExpression {
override func replacementString(for result: NSTextCheckingResult, in string: String, offset: Int, template templ: String) -> String {
if let range = Range(result.range(at: 1), in: string) {
return string[range].uppercased()
} else {
return super.replacementString(for: result, in: string, offset: 0, template: templ)
}
}
}
func toCamelCase(_ input: String) -> String { //Make this a String extension if you prefer...
let regex = try! ToCamelRegularExpression(pattern: "_(.)")
return regex.stringByReplacingMatches(in: input, options: [], range: NSRange(0..<input.utf16.count), withTemplate: "$1")
}
print(toCamelCase("te_st")) //-> teSt
print(toCamelCase("_he_l_lo")) //-> HeLLo
print(toCamelCase("an_o_t_h_er_strin_g")) //-> anOTHErStrinG