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I have this crazy text in a text file which I want to split into columns for a datagrid. Some advice on how can I do it?
Application: ws_cp_ixnsrv_mm DBID: 845 Status: APP_STATUS_STOPPED Runmode: EXITED
Application: mng_dbserver_p DBID: 469 Status: APP_STATUS_RUNNING Runmode: PRIMARY
Application: ird_dap DBID: 470 Status: APP_STATUS_UNKNOWN Runmode: EXITED
Application: mng_dap DBID: 471 Status: APP_STATUS_UNKNOWN Runmode: EXITED
Application: mng_messagesrv_p DBID: 472 Status: APP_STATUS_RUNNING Runmode: PRIMARY
Application: mng_scs_p DBID: 473 Status: APP_STATUS_STOPPED Runmode: EXITED Error
Application: pulse_collector_02 DBID: 827 Status: APP_STATUS_RUNNING Runmode: BACKUP
Application: was_tomcat_1 DBID: 829 Status: APP_STATUS_RUNNING Runmode: PRIMARY
Application: svc_nss_p DBID: 850 Status: APP_STATUS_RUNNING Runmode: PRIMARY
Application: svc_nss_b DBID: 851 Status: APP_STATUS_STOPPED Runmode: EXITED Error
My idea: Columns:
Application, DBID, Status, Runmode
ws_cp_ixnsrv_mm, 845, APP_STATUS_STOPPED, EXITED
pulse_collector_02, 827, APP_STATUS_RUNNING, BACKUP

Answer 1

When you have strings with a regularity to how they are expressed, you can use..
..a regular expression
Quick regex intro:
+ means "One or more of the thing to the left". The thing to the left can be a single thing, or a group of things
[..] means a group of characters, which are defined between the brackets. Hyphen means a range, so [a-z] is "lowercase a to z", [a-zA-Z] is "lowercase a to z or uppercase A to Z", [abc] is "a or b or c", [abce-t] is "a or b or c or (e to t)"
(?<x>...) means "whatever is matched by ... is captured into a group (a variable) named x
\d means "any digit", in other words, equal to [0-9]
The code:
Dim r as New RegEx("Application: (?<a>[a-z_]+) DBID: (<?d>\d+) Status: (?<s>[A-Z_]+) Runmode: (?<r>[A-Z]+)")
This means:
Application: (?<a>[a-z_]+) DBID: (<?d>\d+) Status: (?<s>[A-Z_]+) Runmode: (?<r>[A-Z]+)
^-----------^^-----------^^-----^^-------^^-------^^-----------^^--------^^----------^
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
The literal string Application: followed by
One or more of a to z or underscore, captured into a followed by
literal DBID: followed by
One or more of any digit, captured into d followed by
Literal string Status: followed by
One or more of A to Z or underscore, captured into s followed by
Literal string Runmode: followed by
One or more of A to Z, captured into r
And how it's used:
Dim s = "Application: ws_cp_ixnsrv_mm DBID: 845 Status: APP_STATUS_STOPPED Runmode: EXITED"
Dim m = r.Match(s)
m.Groups("a").Value 'it's the application column e.g. "ws_cp_ixnsrv_mm"
m.Groups("d").Value 'it's the dbid column e.g. "845"
m.Groups("s").Value 'it's the status column e.g. "APP_STATUS_STOPPED"
m.Groups("r").Value 'it's the runmode column e.g. "EXITED"
You'd run the Match for every line (read the file in and process each line in turn)
If you want "EXITED Error" in r, modify the characters class from [A-Z] to [a-zA-Z ] to include the space and lowercase chars from Error
Alernatively, if you already know how to split strings, maybe life would be easier by doing:
Dim s = "Application: ws_cp_ixnsrv_mm DBID: 845 Status: APP_STATUS_STOPPED Runmode: EXITED"
s = s.Replace("Application: ","").Replace(" DBID: ","|").Replace(" Status: ","|").Replace(" Runmode: ","|")
Dim ss = s.Split("|"c)