Question

I’m looking for a regex to extract two numbers from the same text (they can be run independently, no need to extract them both in one go.

I’m using yahoo pipes.

Source Text: S$ 5,200 / month Negotiable, 1,475 sqft / 137 sqm (built-in) – Apartment, 10 Anson Road (D02)

Need to extract as a number: 1,475
and also (but can be extracted on a separate instance)
Need to extract as a number: 137

I got the following pattern from someone quite helpful on a different forum:

\b(\d+(,\d+)*)\s+(sqft|sqm)

but when i go and use it with a replace $1, it brings back the whole source text instead of just the numbers i want (ie. 1,475 or 137 depending on whether i run
\b(\d+(,\d+))\s+(sqft) or \b(\d+(,\d+))\s+(sqm)

what am i doing wrong?

Answer 1

Well you could do this by iterating through the matches and getting the results that way.

But if you want to use the replace method then this could work:

^.*?(?<sqft>\d+(,\d+)*)\s?sqft.*?(?<sqm>\d+(,\d+)*)\s?sqm.*$

And then replace with:

${sqft}
${sqm}

Here it is in action.

This will work with or without a comma in the sqft or sqm numbers. And the .* at the beginning, middle, and end forces it to match the entire string so that the replacement text eliminates everything except for what you’re after.