Get Text In Between Quotes

[micropathic]

Hi, I am reading a file to a string and I want to find the data between each set of quotes in the string. For instance, if my string looked something like this:

 

randomtext randomtext randomtext "this is what i want" randomtext randomtext "this is also what i want" randomtext

 

How could I get "this is what i want" and "this is also what i want" from the string?

 

Thanks for any help!

[Joe Mamma]

one easy way would to string.splt on " and use every other word from the resulting array.

[HJB417]

Alternative:

 

use the regex use the regex "([^"]*)"

 

using System;
using System.Collections.Specialized;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
class Class1
{
	[sTAThread]
	static void Main(string[] args)
	{
		Console.Write("Enter the sentence to parse: ");
		string sentence = Console.ReadLine();
		StringCollection quotedText = new StringCollection();
		
		foreach(Match match in Regex.Matches(sentence, "\"([^\"]*)\""))
		{
			quotedText.Add(match.Result("$1"));
		}
		
		Console.WriteLine("\r\nThe following quoted text was found:");
		for(int i=1; i <= quotedText.Count; i++)
		{
			Console.WriteLine("{0}) {1}", i, quotedText[i-1]);
		}
	}
}
}

 

And the output

 

Enter the sentence to parse: randomtext randomtext randomtext "this is what i wa

nt" randomtext randomtext "this is also what i want" randomtext

 

The following quoted text was found:

1) this is what i want

2) this is also what i want

Press any key to continue

[micropathic]

Thanks for you help! I'd prefer to use the string.split method if I could. I have a question about that though. How can I loop through the entire string until the end while getting all the text between the quotes? For instance, here is the an example that MS gives that I am trying to modify for my own use for string.split:

 

 

Dim delimStr As String = chr(34)
    Dim delimiter As Char() = delimStr.ToCharArray()
    ' Dim words As String = "one" &  chr(34) & "two" & chr(34) & "three" & chr(34) & "four"
    Dim sr As New System.IO.StreamReader("C:\MyTextFile.txt")
    Dim words As String = sr.ReadToEnd()
    Dim split As String() = Nothing
     
     Console.WriteLine("The delimiters are -{0}-", delimStr)
     Dim x As Integer
    
For x = 1 To 5  'THIS IS WHAT NEEDS TO BE MODIFIED, I NEED TO READ 
                'ALL INSTANCES, NOT JUST THE FIRST FIVE
        split = words.Split(delimiter, x)
        Console.WriteLine(ControlChars.Cr + "count = {0,2} ..............", x)
        Dim s As String
        For Each s In  split
           Console.WriteLine("-{0}-", s)
        Next s
     Next x

So, I guess my question is, what would X have to equal in order for me to ensure that the reading of string does not stop until it finds the final instance of text within quotes?

[micropathic]

Actually though, I would not mind using a regular expression, but when I try to use the code above, I am getting the following errors:

 

-Expression expected

-Expression is not an array or a method, and cannot have an argument list.

 

The following are highlighted within the regular expression:

For Each match In Regex.Matches(sentence,"\"((^\"]*)\"")

Here is the code I'm using:

Dim sr As New System.IO.StreamReader(SafeFileName)

       Dim sentence As String = sr.ReadToEnd()
       Dim quotedText As StringCollection = New StringCollection

       Dim match As Match
           For Each match In Regex.Matches(sentence,"\"((^\"]*)\"")
           quotedText.Add(match.Result("$1"))
       Next

       Dim i As Integer
       For i = 1 To quotedText.Count Step i + 1
           Console.WriteLine("{0}) {1}", i, quotedText(i - 1))
       Next

[HJB417]

An error in translation

For Each match In Regex.Matches(sentence, """([^""]*)""")

 

C# Language Specification - 2.4.4.5 String literals

 

Visual Basic Language Concepts - Strings

 

If you're not gonna read both, at least read the vb one.