Question

I have collection in text file:

(Collection
  (Item "Name1" 1 2 3)
  (Item "Simple name2" 1 2 3)
  (Item "Just name 3" 4 5 6))

Collection also could be empty:

(Collection)

The number of items is undefined. It could be one item or one hundred. By previous extraction I already have inner text between Collection element:

(Item "Name1" 1 2 3)(Item "Simple name2" 1 2 3)(Item "Just name 3" 4 5 6)

In the case of empty collection it will be empty string.

How could I parse this collection using .Net Regular Expression?

I tried this:

string pattern = @"(\(Item\s""(?<Name>.*)""\s(?<Type>.*)\s(?<Length>.*)\s(?<Number>.*))*";

But the code above doesn’t produce any real results.

UPDATE:

I tried to use regex differently:

foreach (Match match in Regex.Matches(document, pattern, RegexOptions.Singleline))
{
    for (int i = 0; i < match.Groups["Name"].Captures.Count; i++)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(match.Groups["Name"].Captures[i].Value);
    }
}

or

while (m.Success)
{
    m.Groups["Name"].Value.Dump();
    m.NextMatch();
}

Answer 1

Try

\(Item (?<part1>\".*?\")\s(?<part2>\d+)\s(?<part3>\d+)\s(?<part4>\d+)\)

this will create a collection of matches:

Regex regex = new Regex(
      "\\(Item (?<part1>\\\".*?\\\")\\s(?<part2>\\d+)\\s(?<part3>\\d"+
      "+)\\s(?<part4>\\d+)\\)",
    RegexOptions.Multiline | RegexOptions.Compiled
    );

//Capture all Matches in the InputText
MatchCollection ms = regex.Matches(InputText);


//Get the names of all the named and numbered capture groups
string[] GroupNames = regex.GetGroupNames();

// Get the numbers of all the named and numbered capture groups
int[] GroupNumbers = regex.GetGroupNumbers();