Question

update 0

I added the code with for (... match in) below.

update 0

My source text repeats approximately every 40 lines. Below I show 8 lines for each of 2 repetitions below. The full data set is here. I need from the “[Board]” line the one or two digits between the quotes; from the “[Dealer]” line I need the single letter between the quotes.

[Board "1"]
[Dealer "N"]
[Vulnerable "None"]
[Deal "N:Q952.652.KJT4.95 T.KQT84.A865.J73 K8763.A7.Q.KQT84 AJ4.J93.9732.A62"]
[Scoring ""]
[Declarer ""]
[Contract ""]

[Board "2"]
[Dealer "E"]
[Vulnerable "NS"]
[Deal "E:K8542.3.4.AT7532 J76.K7.AT85.KQJ8 QT3.AJ84.KJ963.4 A9.QT9652.Q72.96"]
[Scoring ""]
[Declarer ""]
[Contract ""]

The following regex sort of works, but only picks up one match, not the 30+ matches in my text.

NSString *toMatch = @"\\[Board \"([0-9][0-9]?)\"\\].*\\[Dealer \"([NEWS])\"\\]";
NSRegularExpression *regex = [NSRegularExpression  regularExpressionWithPattern:toMatch options:NSRegularExpressionDotMatchesLineSeparators error:&error];
for (NSTextCheckingResult* match in [regex matchesInString:string options:NSRegularExpressionDotMatchesLineSeparators range:NSMakeRange(0, [string length])])
    {
        NSLog(@"Number of ranges in match: %u", match.numberOfRanges);
        for (NSUInteger i = 0; i < match.numberOfRanges; ++i)
        {
            NSRange matchedRange = [match rangeAtIndex: i];
            NSString* tstring = [string substringWithRange: matchedRange];
            NSLog(@"range %lu string: %@", (unsigned long)i, tstring);
        }
    }

I suspect the problem is in the linefeeds, but I don’t know how to fix it and the options
. This is a continuation of this question.

How do I fix the regex pattern to get the multiple matches?

(In addition, I need the following on the “[Deal]” line, but let’s ignore that for now. I need four separate groups, the first after the “:” and before the space, the second and third are between spaces, and the last is everything after the last space and before the quote.)

Answer 1

I could be wrong, but I think the problem in your pattern is that you have .* and you have chosen NSRegularExpressionDotMatchesLineSeparators, so that .* will match everything until it reaches the last occurrence of [Dealer in the source text.

You can turn the .* into a “non-greedy” version by using .*?, alternatively you could avoid having the .* at all and replace it \\n (assuming your input is delimited with a single \n). Note that in order for the regular expression compiler to see \ and n (which is the recognised escape sequence to match a linefeed character), you have to escape the \ in the NSString, so you have to use \\n, i.e.:

NSString *toMatch = "\\[Board \"([0-9][0-9]?)\"\\]\\n\\[Dealer \"([NEWS])\"\\]";

If your source text has Windows line endings you could use \\r\\n instead, etc.