Xicheng Jia wrote:
> Rick wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am having an issue capturing all the data I need
in a particular
> > postscript format.
> >
> > The data information is broken down as follows:
> >
> > The co-ordinates for the data xxxx (space) yyyy
(space) the letter 'M'
> > (space) and the data is in the brackets.
> >
> > The next character after the closing bracket can
either a opening
> > square bracket ([) an 'S' or an end of line
(This determines that this
> > is valid data).
> >
> > There are 3 different data format scenarios.
> >
> > 1. 400 767 M (Data I need to extract) -> suffix
characters [ or S or
> > eol
> > 2. 400 767 M (data \\( I need to extract \\)
with nested brackets)S
> > The nested brackets will always be escaped
with '\\'
> > 3. 175 3303 M (t)S 188 3303 M (t)S 202 3303 M
(p)S etc which is all
> > on one line
> >
> > The coordinates may not be the first characters on
the line.
> >
> > I have had some success with
> >
[0-9]{1,4}\s[0-9]{1,4}\s[M]\s\(.*[^\\](?=\)(\z|S|\[
)) but this doesn't
> > handle data format 3 as it extracts the whole line
rather than breaking
> > it down to each data section.
> >
> > The 2 critical issues I need to address are:
> > -Handling data format 3, which also include nested
brackets
> > -Ensuring that other unwanted data is not captured
that may be in a
> > similar format but will not contain one of the 3
suffix characters
> > mentioned above.
> >
> > I am new to regular expressions and this is doing
my head in so your
> > time is appreciated I you can help me.
>
> If you want to separate every data satisfying your
conditions into
> different records, then you may try:
>
>
(\d+\s+\d+\s+M\s+\([^\\()]*(?:[\\][\\].[^\\()]
*)*\)(?:S|\s|$|\[))
>
> which means:
>
> ( # start of capuring $1
> \d+\s+\d+ # two numbers separated by spaces
> \s+M\s+ # followed by a capital letter 'M'
> \( # opening paren
> [^\\()]* # anything except parens and
backslash
> (?: # start of grouping
> [\\][\\]. # escaped any characters in the
form of \\.
> [^\\()]* # anything except parens and
backslash
> )* # end of grouping, any number of
such groups
> \) # closing paren
> (?:S|$|\[) # followed by 'S', eol, or '['
> ) # end of capturing $1
>
> For the following input string:(use global search)
> _________________________
> 1. 400 767 M (Data I need to extract) -> suffix
characters [ or S or
> eol
> 2. 400 767 M (data \\( I need to extract \\) with
nested brackets)S
> The nested brackets will always be escaped with
'\\'
> 3. 175 3303 M (t)S 188 3303 M (t)S 202 3303 M (p)S
etc which is all
> on one line
> __________________________
>
> (Line-1 doesnot have a wanted suffix) it prints 4
records:
> ___________________________
> 400 767 M (data \\( I need to extract \\) with
nested brackets)S
> 175 3303 M (t)S
> 188 3303 M (t)S
> 202 3303 M (p)S
> ____________________
> But if you want only 2 records, and hold the last three
into one, then
> just do some minor modifications, like:
>
>
((?:\d+\s+\d+\s+M\s+\([^\\()]*(?:[\\][\\].[^\\
()]*)*\)(?:S|$|\[)\x20*)+)
>
> (contents captured in $1) use an outer grouping parens
and some
> possible spaces \x20* to join adjacent same data
structures on one
> line, you may also want to change \x20* to [ \t]*
which contains also
> TAB as the connectors.
>
> BTW. you may need to take care of the backslash
problems, some tools
> may need more than two backslashes to escape one
backslash, here I just
> used a character-class [\\] to spacify one backslash.
>
> Good luck,
> Xicheng
Thanks Xicheng your comments were helpfull in understanding
regex a bit
more but I managed to solve my issue before this post was
published (a
long time!) My resolution was
([0-9]{1,4}\s[0-9]{1,4})\s[M]\s\(((?>.*?[^\\]\)))(
\r|\z|S|\[)
Thanks again
Rick
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