Question

Hi Im trying to get a RegEx to work. I have this text:

/Ffont2 45.83 Tf  252 980 Td (XX7445 DDA PURCHASE 05/28 04:48
MCDONALD'S F561 CHICAGO IL 105/29          10.25) Tj ET
0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 rg 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 RG BT /Ffont2 45.83 Tf  252 937 Td (   12333378 214904443) Tj ET
0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 rg 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 RG BT /Ffont2 45.83 Tf  252 894 Td (CITI CARD ONLINE PAYMENT 12345678                    05/29          87.99) Tj ET
0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 rg 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 RG BT /Ffont2 45.83 Tf  252 851 Td (XX7445 DDA PURCHASE 0528 14:11 #03632 JEWEL CHICAGO IL     0529          97.60) Tj ET

and Im trying to get everything from Td to Tj like

Td (CITI CARD ONLINE PAYMENT 12345678                    05/29                87.99) Tj

but I want to skip things if they have no date, (must have forward slash), they must have a money amount(must have period) and I dont want it if it has the word “purchase” in it. So

Td (XX7445 DDA PURCHASE 0528 14:11 #03632 JEWEL CHICAGO IL     0529         97.60) Tj

would not be returned. right now I have

(Td \()([^\)]*)([^\)]*)([/][^\)]*[.][^\)]*\) Tj)

for my regex and that gets everything but it gets it even it has “purchase”

Answer 1

What you have is fine. Regex can be used for this.. but why put a Formula 1 car on a go-kart track (<— bad analogy..) waste CPU cycles?

var matchesWithoutPurchase = Regex.Matches(yourInput, @"(Td \()([^\)]*)([^\)]*)([/][^\)]*[.][^\)]*\) Tj)")
    .Cast<Match>().Where(x => !x.Value.ToLower().Contains("purchase"));

foreach (var match in matchesWithoutPurchase) {
    Console.WriteLine(match);
}

Regex negative lookarounds are overkill for this.