Question

How can I catch an arbitrary string between defined words using regular expressions in .Net, e.g. @”…DEFINED_WORD1 some_arbitrary_string DEFINED_WORD2…”? Unfortunately my experiments with “(?=)” and other patterns are unsuccessful 🙁

Answer 1

This will catch anything between the words, as long as there’s a space after the first word and before the second. If there are multiple occurrences of WORD2 after WORD1, the first one will be considered.

WORD1 (.*?) WORD2

This is the same, but doesn’t require spaces (e.g. "WORD1, some string WORD2" will match):

WORD1\b(.*?)\bWORD2

This will start from the first WORD1 and go on until the last WORD2:

WORD1\b(.*)\bWORD2

Depending on the details of your case, this may be cleaner and easier without regular expressions.