Regex output in Matches box

Help
,
1

Hello,

I’m trying to understand the RegexBox “(.*?) Matches”

In input i sent a String Variable
My pattern is working fine as regex (finding special caracter to return the X caracters before)
The result is a brand new Variable

When i’m trying to confirm that my expression is working fine it returns “System.Linq.Enumerable+d__94`1[System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match]” as a result. This is a quite a big message compared to the few letters that i was expecting :slight_smile:

Any idea ? I tried to modifiy my variable type, but UI Path is requesting “IEnumerable” type

Thank you

12 Likes
2

Hum, probably not so easy ?

Should i have to consider it as issue ?

In the meantime i tried to modify the “RegexOption” filed, but same problem.

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3

Ok ! Found it …

So, here is the trick :

The output is a “Collection” (meaning a data table ?). So to work with your “collection” (in my case 1 word) you have to “Assign” it to a String Variable like this :

yourVariable=collectionName(0).ToString

“(0)” to call the first result

16 Likes
4

You are a star CG00. I have been trying to figure this out for hours and now, thanks to you, it works.Thank you!!

5

what if I want to print all the result from that collection?. How should I do that?

1 Like
6

You can use For each activity. In Values option you put the Collection of Matches. And change the variable type of item to System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match. And then a Write line activity.
Screenshot_86

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7

It works. Thanks a lot

8

Hi, I try to write all the items but 2 with conditions into a txt file.
I replace the “Write line” with Write Text" but it doesn’t won’t work because it is replacing the file every time…

How to do that? Thanks

9

You can use the ‘Append Line’ activity instead of the ‘Write Text’ activity.

Just specify the name of the file you’d like to use (it will create a new one if it doesn’t exist already) and it should work. If you want each match to be on a new line, you can change it to item.tostring + environment.newline.

2 Likes
10

Dave, it works perfectly :smiley: !! Also, regex is a better and more straightforward approach to my case. Learning a bit more everyday - Thank you very much! You the best :sunny:

11

Hi Dave, turns out I will have to put the number in a format like this:

123;456;756;

but by using append line, even if I use item.ToString + “;”
it shows:

123;
456;
756;

Is there another activity that I can use to achieve this within the matches forloop? Thanks!

12

use append text instead of append line

EDIT: It is supposed to be for word documents, but I think it works for .txt files as well. I’ve never used it though.

Another approach would be to store it as a string or list of strings, then write the full string out in a write text file activity after the For Each loop completes

14

Thanks for your respond! My long time concern is how to append the variable in the list outside of a forloop.
For example in python, we can do

y =
for x in xs:
y.append(x)

what about uipath? After some research, I could do

y.add(item.ToString)

but then what activity should I wrap this to…???

so I declared y as a string, then how can I append it in the forloop?

Thanks!

15

Hi Folks,

i’m trying to use matches to find words in a txt but i need to use wildcards but i have no idea.

I.E. in a txt i have those words:

tei.pdf
tei_1.pdf…
\tei__.pdf

the target is to get the words :

tei.pdf
tei_1.pdf
tei__.pdf

so i need to enter wildcards between “tei” and “pdf”

this is the flow…

image
image859×438 16.8 KB

please, could you help me??

thanks in advance!!

16

I believe you can use the following: tei.*\.pdf

Assumptions: There won’t be any newline characters between the first t in tei and the last f in .pdf

How it works:

  1. tei - This finds the 3 characters tei that must be in a row without any other characters between them
  2. .* - This uses the . character which is a wildcard that matches everything except newline characters in conjunction with * which matches the preceding character 0 or more times
  3. \.pdf - This finds the 4 characters .pdf that must be in a row without other characters between them. Since . is a special character in regex, it must be escaped by preceding it with a backslash \

Regex doesn’t use the asterisk * as a wildcard for any character like you’re used to, an approximation of the * in VB.NET regex would be the period/full stop character . which matches any character except newline.

I’d recommend checking out https://www.regular-expressions.info/ for a quick tutorial on how to use regex. I usually test everything out at .NET Regex Tester - Regex Storm (which is where I tested my answer to your question).

I used the following string to test if I could pull out your 3 examples and it did it without a problem.

asdfuhiaushxjioahzxjifhqweiohf jaskdhfjkashodfuihwauiefhcjfj
asdrfhuihgyigybnkatei.pdfchgaoyerjhbzxnf
uxuuyebjhgvu3e8h989ycc7v7b78b89
asduhfiiuhjckjcjkbmcm,sajkhasdfuie
tei_1.pdf
asdjkfcfhibjklahbccbhasdiosfdajdfiopuasdfiuopashdfuiasipdghiasdghiuoh11377577c986vasdghf8907ag90a78yrf123n.s.zdkjfhsioetei__.pdf
2 Likes
17

Sorry for the delay Dave, your solution is much pretty, and thanks for the links :wink: :wink:

BR.