Extract text from a string

Question

How do I extract the \"program name\" from a string. The string will look like this :

% O0033(SUB RAD MSD 50R III) G91G1X-6.4Z-2.F500 G3I6.4Z-8. G

Answer 1

Just to add a non-regex solution:

'(' + $myString.Split('()')[1] + ')'

This splits the string at the parentheses and takes the string from the array with the program name in it.

If you don't need the parentheses, just use:

$myString.Split('()')[1]

Answer 2

If program name is always the first thing in (), and doesn't contain other )s than the one at end, then $yourstring -match "[(][^)]+[)]" does the matching, result will be in $Matches[0]

Answer 3

Using -replace

 $string = '% O0033(SUB RAD MSD 50R III) G91G1X-6.4Z-2.F500 G3I6.4Z-8.G3I6.4 G3R3.2X6.4F500 G91G0Z5. G91G1X-10.4 G3I10.4 G3R5.2X10.4 G90G0Z2. M99 %'
 $program = $string -replace '^%\sO\d{4}\((.+?)\).+$','$1'
 $program

SUB RAD MSD 50R III

Answer 4

The following regex extract anything between the parenthesis:

PS> $prog = [regex]::match($s,'\(([^\)]+)\)').Groups[1].Value
PS> $prog
SUB RAD MSD 50R III


Explanation (created with RegexBuddy)

Match the character '(' literally «\(»
Match the regular expression below and capture its match into backreference number 1 «([^\)]+)»
   Match any character that is NOT a ) character «[^\)]+»
      Between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy) «+»
Match the character ')' literally «\)»

Check these links:

http://www.regular-expressions.info

http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/tobias/archive/2011/10/27/regular-expressions-are-your-friend-part-1.aspx

http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/tobias/archive/2011/12/02/regular-expressions-are-your-friend-part-2.aspx

http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/tobias/archive/2011/12/02/regular-expressions-are-your-friend-part-3.aspx