How to remove a possibly parenthesized expression from a string?

Question

I want to use RegEx in order to remove version numbers from product names. The names can look like this:

SampleProduct 2.0

They can also have parent

Answer 1

If you want to avoid repeating the part of a pattern in a regex and just want to match 2.0 or (2.0) BUT not (2.0 or 2.0), you may use a conditional regex:

(\()?\d+(?:\.\d+)*(?(1)\))

See the regex demo.

If there is just one parentheses it won't become part of a match.

Details

• (\()? - An optional capturing group #1: a ( char (if there is no (, the value of this group is null and the later (?(1)...) check will fail)
• \d+ - 1 or more digits
• (?:\.\d+)* - 0 or more repetitions of . and 1+ digits
• (?(1)\)) - a conditional construct: if Group 1 matched, ) must be matched, else there is nothing to match (absent |...) else condition part means anything can follow the pattern before).