Question

Here is the data source, lines stored in a txt file:

servers[i]=["name1", type1, location3];
servers[i]=["name2", type2, location3];
servers[i]=["name3", type1, location7];

Here is my code:

    string servers = File.ReadAllText("servers.txt");
    string pattern = "^servers[i]=[\"(?<name>.*)\", (.*), (?<location>.*)];$";

    Regex reg = new Regex(pattern, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Multiline);
    Match m;

    for (m = reg.Match(servers); m.Success; m = m.NextMatch()) {
        string name = m.Groups["name"].Value;
        string location = m.Groups["location"].Value;                
    }

No lines are matching. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

I don’t know if C# regex’s are the same as perl, but if so, you probably want to escape the [ and ] characters. Also, there are extra characters in there. Try this:

string pattern = "^servers\[i\]=\[\"(?<name>.*)\", (.*), (?<location>.*)\];$";

Edited to add: After wondering why my answer was downvoted and then looking at Val’s answer, I realized that the “extra characters” were there for a reason. They are what perl calls “named capture buffers”, which I have never used but the original code fragment does. I have updated my answer to include them.