I'm looking into an Xregexp expression that support named parameter preceded by letters . Here is my expression :
(?:d:|duration:)(?<time>.*\S+).*(?:t:|title:)(?<title>(?:.*\S+))(?:.*(?:(?:p:|prize:)(?<prize>.*\S+)))
It is working well, but the problem is I wanna put the p:<prize> group as optional, Which expression should I use ?
I'm also trying to end the capture when there is a white space
Example:
What I want :
duration:1h 5m 1s title:Title test [p:prize]<-optionnal group
I want to have the prize group as optional
Match with the current expression :
duration:1h 5m 1s title:Title test p:Something random
Group results:
time : 1h 5m 1s
title : Title test
prize : Something random
You need to restrict your patterns a bit to get rid of .* that would eat up all up to the last occurrences of subsequent subpatterns. Then, use lazy dot pattern (.*?) whenever you need to match a value up to the next key, and add a $ (end of string) anchor at the end to make sure you will get all the text with the lazy dots.
d(?:uration)?:(?<time>.*?)\s*t(?:itle)?:(?<title>.*?)\s*(?:p(?:rize)?:(?<prize>.*))?$
See the regex pattern.
Details
d(?:uration)?: - a d: or duration:(?<time>.*?) - Group "time": any zero or more chars, as few as possible, up to the leftmost occurrence of the subsequent subpatterns\s* - 0+ whitespacest(?:itle)?: - either title: or t:(?<title>.*?)- Group "title": any zero or more chars, as few as possible \s* - 0+ whitespaces(?: - start of an optional non-capturing group matching 1 or 0 occurrences of:
p(?:rize)?: - p: or prize:(?<prize>.*) - Group "prize": any zero or more chars, as few as possible)? - end of the optional group$ - end of string.