regex match text in either single or double quote

Question

I want to match strings like:

The sentence is \'He said \"Hello there\"\'
The sentence is \"He said \'Hello there\'\"

and get back a single

Answer 1

Very sad, but such an elegant and accurate way does not work:

(["'])(?:\\\1|[^\1]+)*\1

But we can change it a little bit, and all works fine:

(["'])((?:\\\1|(?:(?!\1)).)*)(\1)

https://regex101.com/r/dKdBMT/2

I would like to make sure that this regexp will work in all cases: please more test it.

Answer 2

You want to make sure the quote symbols are properly matched, so a quote starting with a single quote ends with a single quote. Also, the regex should allow for escaping a quote symbol with a backslash if it's the same symbol (double or single quote symbol) bounding the string. Try this:

"(?:[^"\\]|\\.)*"|'(?:[^'\\]|\\.)*'

These samples match this regex:

'sing"le q\'uote'

"dou\"ble 'quote"

Answer 3

This one seems to work:

(?:'|").*(?:'|")

or

((?:'|").*(?:'|"))

if you need a group.

Here's the demo: link

It works, because * is a greedy quantifier, so you don't have to know what kind of quote is in the end. * will take as much as possible.