Question

Environment: Visual Studio 2008 SP1

How can I write the following regex?

I’m trying to get to ‘target string. The pattern is any string between [name]=’ ‘

/*Input String*/
SET [blah] = 'AE', [blah] = 'A1A', [number] = 004 WHERE [name]='target string'


/*Current Regex*/
(?<=[?name]?=).*(?=\')

/*Current Results*/
'AE', [blah] = 'A1A', [number] = 004 WHERE [name]='target string

/*Desired Results*/
'target string

Answer 1

Does this do it?

(?<=\[name]=).*?(?=')

Or if the target string has to be returned without the leading (‘):

(?<=\[name]=').*?(?=')

Note: I assume that the target string does not have escaped apostrophes (”).

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EDIT: This does the trick with the escaped apostrophes:

(?<=\[name]=)(''|.)+?(?='([^']|$))

It will find “'John''s pub” in

SET [blah] = 'AE', [blah] = 'A1A', [number] = 004 WHERE [name]='John''s pub'