Question

I have a string with the repeating pattern of the form

MM/DD/YYYY (FirstName LastName) Status Update: blah blah blah blah

E.G.

string test = "11/01/2011 (Joe Bob) Status Update: Joe is the collest guy on earfth 08/07/2010 (Rach Mcadam) Status Update: whatever I dont care 06/28/2009 (Some Guy) Status Update: More junk and note how I end there's not gonna be another date after me"

How can I group match this so as to have Date, Name, and Status update for each match?

I tried

        string datePattern = "\\d{1,2}/\\d{1,2}/\\d{0,4}";
        string personPattern = "\\(\\w*\\)";
        Regex regex = new Regex("(" + datePattern + ") (" + personPattern + ") (.*)");
        MatchCollection matches = regex.Matches(test);
        foreach (Match match in matches)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("##Match Found##");
            Console.WriteLine("");
            Console.WriteLine("");
            Console.WriteLine(match.Groups[0]);//full text
            Console.WriteLine("");
            Console.WriteLine(match.Groups[1]);//date only
            Console.WriteLine("");
            Console.WriteLine(match.Groups[2]);//person
            Console.WriteLine("");
            Console.WriteLine(match.Groups[3]);//note
        }

It’s pulling back nothing at this point.

Answer 1

Spaces aren’t included in \w, so \w* will not match Joe Bob. Try changing personPattern to "\\([ \\w]*\\)".

It also looks like your regex is too greedy, because the .* at the end will match the rest of the string, instead of stopping at the next date. Try changing your regex to the following:

Regex regex = new Regex("(" + datePattern + ") (" + personPattern + ") (.*?(?=$|" + datePattern + "))");