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Hi I have this
// ... Input string.
            string input = "Left12345Right";

            // ... Use named group in regular expression.
            Regex expression = new Regex(@"Left(?<middle>\d+)Right");

            // ... See if we matched.
            Match match = expression.Match(input);
            if (match.Success)
            {
                // ... Get group by name.
                string result = match.Groups["middle"].Value;
                Console.WriteLine("Middle: {0}", result);
                Console.WriteLine(match.Name);
            }
            // Done.
            Console.ReadLine();

As I read the info, .Name should return the name of the capturing group, but for me it only returns 0, and I can't understand why.

So I hope that some here can tel me what I'm doing wrong. (I'm new to C# and regex).

Cheers
/LR

What I have tried:

Googled to find answer, but found nothing.
Posted
Updated 4-Feb-20 6:46am
Comments
Richard MacCutchan 4-Feb-20 12:36pm    
According to my tests, and the documentation, Match does not contain a Name property.
Richard MacCutchan 4-Feb-20 12:53pm    
The compiler rejected it when I tried. I Must take a longer look at that.

Try this:
C#
Console.WriteLine(match.Groups[1].Name);
The first group in a Match is the whole match, which consists of all the Groups in the Match.
 
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Comments
Maciej Los 4-Feb-20 14:24pm    
5ed!
Lupu5R3x 5-Feb-20 11:43am    
Hi I tried that, but [1] just give me the name of the first group name in my pattern, not the name of the captured group.

eg. if I have this pattern (?(abc)|(?<d>def)|(?<g>ghi) and test string def [1] just gives me a :(

/LR
The Match instance itself is equivalent to the first object in the collection, at Match.Groups[0], which represents the entire match.

There is no sensible name that could be given to the group representing the entire match, so it gets the name 0 by default. This allows you to reference the entire match in a replacement expression by using $0.

It's not clear from your question what you're trying to achieve with the Name property. Were you looking for the GetGroupNames method[^] instead?
 
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Comments
Maciej Los 4-Feb-20 14:24pm    
5ed!
Lupu5R3x 5-Feb-20 11:23am    
I'm trying to convert a Autoit regex pattern like this "(abc)|(def)|(ghi)", 1
Where ,1 returns a match of arrays.

So the result of "def" would return [0] = , [1] = def

But sins I couldn't find any equitant to match of arrays in C#, my hope was that I could use naming groups to return the name of the group that was matched.

eg. (?abc)|(?<d>def)|(?<g>ghi) and test def should (was my thought) return d.

But when trying what @OriginalGriff sugested, I just get the group name I specified so [1] returns a, [2] = b but that it does regardless of what the match is.

And yes I should have specified exactly what I was trying to achieve, with the regex, sry for that :(

/LR
Richard Deeming 5-Feb-20 11:46am    
I'm not familiar with the "match of arrays" feature, but named groups seems like the way to go:
Regex expression = new Regex(@"(?<a>abc)|(?<b>def)|(?<c>ghi)", RegexOptions.ExplicitCapture);
Match match = expression.Match(input);
if (match.Success)
{
    if (match.Groups["a"].Success)
    {
        // Matched first option...
    }
    else if (match.Groups["b"].Success)
    {
        // Matched second option...
    }
    else if (match.Groups["c"].Success)
    {
        // Matched third option...
    }
}
Lupu5R3x 5-Feb-20 12:17pm    
Hmm, yes it seems that it would be the most simple solution to my problem. :)

Regardless of how annoying it is that all my one line regex's end up as several lines in C# to get the same result :( the last regex I translated went from one line to 10 lines in C# :O course C# don't support \K :'(

/LR
Richard Deeming 5-Feb-20 12:34pm    
I'm not familiar with \K - is it some sort of look-behind operator?

Grouping Constructs in Regular Expressions | Microsoft Docs[^]

string input = "2010 1999 1861 2140 2009";
string pattern = @"(?<=\b20)\d{2}\b";
foreach (Match match in Regex.Matches(input, pattern))
{
    Console.WriteLine(match.Value);
}

/*
Output:
10
09
*/

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