Regex : how to get words from a string (C#)

Question

My input consists of user-posted strings.

What I want to do is create a dictionary with words, and how often they’ve been used. This means I want to parse a string,

Answer 1

Using the following

var pattern = new Regex(
  @"( [^\W_\d]              # starting with a letter
                            # followed by a run of either...
      ( [^\W_\d] |          #   more letters or
        [-'\d](?=[^\W_\d])  #   ', -, or digit followed by a letter
      )*
      [^\W_\d]              # and finishing with a letter
    )",
  RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace);

var input = "#@!@LOLOLOL YOU'VE BEEN *PWN3D* ! :') !!!1einszwei drei foo--bar!";

foreach (Match m in pattern.Matches(input))
  Console.WriteLine("[{0}]", m.Groups[1].Value);

produces output of

[LOLOLOL]
[YOU'VE]
[BEEN]
[PWN3D]
[einszwei]
[drei]
[foo]
[bar]