Question

I am trying to write a regular expression to parse a string that represents a function call. I want to parse:

createNewEmail(mailToJohn, recipientGeorge, Subject, content);

into an array of strings:
createNewMail,
mailToJohn,
recipientGeorge,
Subject,
content

Other possible inputs could be:

createNewEmail(mailToJohn, recipientGeorge, Subject, content);

makeTemplateUser(templateName, userName);

deleteEmail(emailToDelete);

updateUserSetting(userId, changedSettings, oldSettingsId);

How do you suggest I parse this?

Answer 1

If your input is really that simple, you can just use

line.Split(new[] { ' ', ',', '(', ')', ';' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Where(s => s.Length > 1).ToArray();

It will work as long as none of your identifiers (function name or argument) are a single character long; if you need to handle that case just modify the Where filter. This will return an array that you can just insert into your larger array (or add to a list, etc).