Regular expression for parsing - objective-c

I'm looking for a regex in order to transform something like
{test}hello world{/test} and {again}i'm coming back{/again} in hello world i'm coming back.
I tried {[^}]+} but with this regex, I can't have only what I have in the test and again tags. Is there a way to complete this regex ?

Doing this properly is generally beyond the capabilities of regular expressions. However, if you can guarantee that those tags will never be nested and your input will never contain curly brackets that do not signify tags, then this regex could do the matching:
\{([^}]+)}(.*?)\{/\1}
Explanation:
\{ # a literal {
( # capture the tag name
[^}]+) # everything until the end of the tag (you already had this)
} # a literal }
( # capture the tag's value
.*?) # any characters, but as few as possible to complete the match
# note that the ? makes the repetition ungreedy, which is important if
# you have the same tag twice or more in a string
\{ # a literal {
\1 # use the tag's name again (capture no. 1)
} # a literal }
So this uses a backreference \1 to make sure that the closing tag contains the same word as the opening tag. Then you will find the tag's name in capture 1 and the tag's value/content in capture 2. From here you can do with these whatever you want (for instance, put the values back together).
Note that you should use the SINGLELINE or DOTALL option, if you want your tags to span multiple lines.

Related

PSQL: Full text search to ignore or match periods and stop characters

I have a full-text search running fine using tsvector / tsquery:
to_tsvector('simple', text) ## plainto_tsquery('simple', :query)
I am formatting the query to include partial matches:
{ query: `${searchTerm}:*` }
However, if I search for 'node' it does not match against text that contains 'node.js'.
How can I include partial matches that have a period or other similar stop character?
Appending :* to the search term and then passing it to plainto_tsquery doesn't make any sense, as plainto_tsquery just strips the :* back off again. You would need to either use to_tsquery, or just write the query directly. For example,
select to_tsvector('simple', 'node.js') ## 'node:*'::tsquery;
yields true.

Partial Match in a Grammar

I have a simple grammar, and I am using it to parse some text. The text is user inputted, but my program guarantees that it stars with a match to the grammar. (ie, if my grammar matched only a, the text might be abc or a or a_.) However, when I use the .parse method on my grammar, it fails on any non-exact match. How can I perform a partial match?
In Raku, Grammar.parse has to match the whole string. This is what causes it to fail if your grammar would only match a in the string abc. To allow matching only part of the input string, you can use Grammar.subparse instead.
grammar Foo {
token TOP { 'a' }
}
my $string = 'abc';
say Foo.parse($string); # Nil
say Foo.subparse($string); # 「a」
The input string will need to start with the potential Match. Otherwise, you will get a failed match.
say Foo.subparse('cbacb'); # #<failed match>
You can work around this using a Capture marker.
grammar Bar {
token TOP {
<-[a]>* # Match 0 or more characters that are *not* a
<( 'a' # Start the match, and match a single 'a'
}
}
say Bar.parse('a'); # 「a」
say Bar.subparse('a'); # 「a」
say Bar.parse('abc'); # Nil
say Bar.subparse('abc'); # 「a」
say Bar.parse('cbabc'); # Nil
say Bar.subparse('cbabc'); # 「a」
This works because <-[a]>*, a character class that includes any character except the letter a, will consume all the characters before a potential a. However, the Capture marker will cause these to be dropped from the eventual Match object, leaving you with just the a you wanted to match.
TL;DR
grammar foo { token TOP { a* } }
# Partial match anchored at start of string:
say .subparse: 'abcaa' given foo; # 「a」
# Partial match anchored to end of string:
say 'abcaa' ~~ / <.foo::TOP> $ /; # 「aa」
# Longest partial match, no anchoring:
say ('abcaaabcaabc' ~~ m:g/ <.foo::TOP> /).max(*.chars); # 「aaa」
Vocabulary
There are traditionally two takes on the general notion of text "matching":
"Parsing"
"Regexes"
Raku:
Provides a unified text pattern language and engine that do both jobs.
Makes it easy to stick to one perspective, or other, or blend them, or refactor between them, as suits an individual dev and/or individual use case.
Takes "parsing" to mean more or less a single match starting at the start of the input string whereas "regexes" are much more flexible.
What you've written in your question and your first comment on Tyil's answer reflects the inherent ambiguity of the topic. I'll provide two answers rather than one to try help you and/or other readers to be clearer about Raku's use of vocabulary, and your options functionality wise.
Limited "partial matching" via .parse et al
You began with:
Partial match in a grammar ... I have a simple grammar ... my program guarantees that it starts with a match to the grammar
With that in mind, here's your question:
How can I perform a partial match?
The phrases "guarantees that it starts" and "partial match" are ambiguous.
One take is that you want what I'll call a "prefix" match, matching one or more characters anchored from the start of the string, and not merely any sub-string starting and ending anywhere in the input string.
This nicely fits with "parsing", or at least Raku's use of the word in its grammar methods.
All the built in Grammar methods with parse in their name insert an anchor to the start of the string in whatever grammar rule they use to start the parsing process. You cannot remove that anchor. This reflects the choice of vocabulary; "parse" is taken to mean matching from the start no matter what else happens.
The parse method for this "prefix" scenario is .subparse:
grammar foo { token TOP { a* } }
# Partial match anchored at start of string:
say .subparse: 'abcaa' given foo; # 「a」
See also:
Search of SO for "[raku] subparse".
raku doc for .subparse.
But perhaps "guarantees that it starts" and "partial match" did not mean that you wanted anchoring at the start. Your comment on Tyil's answer highlights this ambiguity:
Will .subparse only match at the start, or match anywhere in the string?
Tyil provides a workaround. You can do what Tyil shows, but it'll only match if the very first a encountered in the input string is the one that's at the start of the sub-string you want your "parse" to match.
If instead the first a was a false positive, and there was a second or a subsequent a you wanted the "parse" match to start at, then, at least in the Raku world, it's helpful to call that "regexing" rather than "parsing" and to use "regex" matching via the ~~ smartmatch operator.
Unlimited "partial matching" via ~~
Raku lets you do unlimited partial matching if you use its ~~ construct with a regex.
For example, you could write:
# End of match at end of string:
↓
say 'abcaa' ~~ token { a* $ } # 「aa」
~~ with a regex tells Raku to:
Try match starting at the first character position in the string on the LHS;
If that fails, step forward one character, and try again, with the new position in the input string treated as a fresh starting point;
Repeat that until either matching once, or failing to find any match in the entire string.
Here I've left the start position of the match unspecified (which ~~ takes to mean it can be anywhere in the string) and anchored the end of the pattern to the end of the input string. So it successfully matches the aa at the end of the string.
This anchoring freedom illustrates just one of the many ways that ~~ smart matching provides much greater matching flexibility than using the parse methods.
If you have an existing grammar you can still use that:
grammar foo { token TOP { a* } }
# Anchor matching to end of string:
↓
say 'abcaa' ~~ / <.foo::TOP> $ /; # 「aa」
You have to name both the grammar and the rule within it you wish to invoke and put them inside <...>. And you need to insert a . to avoid a correspondingly named sub-capture, presuming you don't want that.
Here's another example:
# Longest partial match, no anchoring:
say ('abcaaabcaabc' ~~ m:g/ <.foo::TOP> /).max(*.chars); # 「aaa」
"Parsing" in Raku always starts at the beginning of an input string and results in either no match or one match.
In contrast, a "regex" can match arbitrary fragments, and can match any number of fragments. (You can even match overlapping fragments.)
In my last example I used :g, which is short for :global, which is a well known feature among traditional regex engines. :g matches as many times as a match is found in the input string (but not overlapping).
The match operation then returns either Nil (no matches at all) or a list of match objects (one or more). I've applied a .max(*.chars) to yield the longest match (the first if there are multiple longest sub-strings).

regex capture middle of url

I'm trying to figure out the base regex to capture the middle of a google url out of a sql database.
For example, a few links:
https://www.google.com/cars/?year=2016&model=dodge+durango&id=1234
https://www.google.com/cars/?year=2014&model=jeep+cherokee+crossover&id=6789
What would be the regex to capture the text to get dodge+durango , or jeep+cherokee+crossover ? (It's alright that the + still be in there.)
My Attempts:
1)
\b[=.]\W\b\w{5}\b[+.]?\w{7}
, but this clearly does not work as this is a hard coded scenario that would only work like something for the dodge durango example. (would extract "dodge+durango)
2) Using positive lookback ,
[^+]( ?=&id )
but I am not fully sure how to use this, as this only grabs one character behind the & symbol.
How can I extract a string of (potentially) any length with any amount of + delimeters between the "model=" and "&id" boundaries?
seems like you could use regexp_replace and access match groups:
regexp_replace(input, 'model=(.*?)([&\\s]|$)', E'\\1')
from here:
The regexp_replace function provides substitution of new text for
substrings that match POSIX regular expression patterns. It has the
syntax regexp_replace(source, pattern, replacement [, flags ]). The
source string is returned unchanged if there is no match to the
pattern. If there is a match, the source string is returned with the
replacement string substituted for the matching substring. The
replacement string can contain \n, where n is 1 through 9, to indicate
that the source substring matching the n'th parenthesized
subexpression of the pattern should be inserted, and it can contain \&
to indicate that the substring matching the entire pattern should be
inserted. Write \ if you need to put a literal backslash in the
replacement text. The flags parameter is an optional text string
containing zero or more single-letter flags that change the function's
behavior. Flag i specifies case-insensitive matching, while flag g
specifies replacement of each matching substring rather than only the
first one
I may be misunderstanding, but if you want to get the model, just select everything between model= and the ampersand (&).
regexp_matches(input, 'model=([^&]*)')
model=: Match literally
([^&]*): Capture
[^&]*: Anything that isn't an ampersand
*: Unlimited times

Does mIRC Scripting have an escape character?

I'm trying to write a simple multi-line Alias that says several predefined strings of characters in mIRC. The problem is that the strings can contain:
{
}
|
which are all used in the scripting language to group sections of code/commands. So I was wondering if there was an escape character I could use.
In lack of that, is there a method, or alternative way to be able to "say" multiple lines of these strings, so that this:
alias test1 {
/msg # samplestring}contains_chars|
/msg # _that|break_continuity}{
}
Outputs this on typing /test1 on a channel:
<MyName> samplestring}contains_chars|
<MyName> _that|break_continuity}{
It doesn't have to use the /msg command specifically, either, as long as the output is the same.
So basically:
Is there an escape character of sorts I can use to differentiate code from a string in mIRC scripting?
Is there a way to tell a script to evaluate all characters in a string as a literal? Think " " quotes in languages like Java.
Is the above even possible using only mIRC scripting?
"In lack of that, is there a method, or alternative way to be able to "say" multiple lines of these strings, so that this:..."
I think you have to have to use msg # every time when you want to message a channel. Alterativelty you can use the /say command to message the active window.
Regarding the other 3 questions:
Yes, for example you can use $chr(123) instead of a {, $chr(125) instead of a } and $chr(124) instead of a | (pipe). For a full list of numbers you can go to http://www.atwebresults.com/ascii-codes.php?type=2. The code for a dot is 46 so $chr(46) will represent a dot.
I don't think there is any 'simple' way to do this. To print identifiers as plain text you have to add a ! after the $. For example '$!time' will return the plain text '$time' as $time will return the actual value of $time.
Yes.

Using groups in OpenRefine regex

I'm wondering if it is possible to use "groups" in ReGeX used in Open Refine GREL syntax. I mean, I'd like to replace all the dots followed and preceded by a character WITH the same character and dot but followed by a space and then the character.
Something like:
s.replace(/(.{1})\..({1})/,/(1).\s(2)/)
It should, but your last argument needs to be a string, not a regular expression. Internally Refine uses Java's Matcher#replaceAll method which accepts a string argument.
I think I found out how to deal with this. You need to put $X in your string value to address a Xth capture group.
It should be like this:
s.replace(/.?(#capcure group 1).?(#capcure group 2).*?/), " some text $1 some text $2 some text")