How can I fix this regex expression?

Question

Preface: This question is a derivative of this question.

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Here is my code:

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

c         


        

Answer 1

As Amy has already mentioned, your string seems to be something like CSV. If it is really a valid CSV - use special libraries.

If CSVHelper isn't applicable in this case and you really need regex, try something like this one:

(?<=(?:^|  ))(.*?)(?=(?:  \")|$)

I haven't coded for C#, so regex may need some edits due to c# specific.

Edit. Code example.

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

class MainClass {
  public static void Main (string[] args) {
        const string rawLine = "\"TeamName\",\"PlayerName\",\"Position\"  \"Chargers\",\"Philip Rivers\",\"QB\"  \"Colts\",\"Peyton Manning\",\"QB\"  \"Patriots\",\"Tom Brady\",\"QB\"";
            //var parsedLines = Regex.Split(rawLine, "(?<=(?:^|  ))(.*?)(?=(?:  \")|$)");
      var parsedLines = Regex.Split(rawLine, "(?<=^)(.*?)(?=(?:  \")|$)|(?<=  )(.*?)(?=(?:  \")|$)");
            parsedLines.ToList().ForEach(Console.WriteLine);

            Console.WriteLine("Press [ENTER] to exit.");
            Console.ReadLine();
  }
}

This code with "dirty" fix for assertion error. However, i can't reproduce it with onlinetool :) Original regex commented in this example.

I hope, this will help you. But i must say again if you working with csv - it is better to use special tools, not regex :)