Regex Replace - Multiple Characters

Question

I have 20 or so characters that I need to replace with various other characters in a block of text. Is there a way to do this in a single regex, and what would this regex be? Or is there an easier way to do this in .NET?

For example, an excerpt from my mapping table is

œ => oe
ž => z
Ÿ => Y
À => A
Á => A
Â => A
Ã => A
Ä => AE

would you really use Regex.Replace(), or you can accept any solution, like string.replace("à", a)? — serhio, Dec 22 '09 at 15:49

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 22 '09 at 15:53

4

If you really like to do it in single regex, there is way to do that.

Dictionary<string, string> map = new Dictionary<string, string>() {
    {"œ","oe"},
    {"ž", "z"},
    {"Ÿ","Y"},
    {"À","A"},
    {"Á","A"},
    {"Â","A"},
    {"Ã","A"},
    {"Ä","AE"},
};

string str = "AAAœžŸÀÂÃÄZZZ";

Regex r = new Regex(@"[œžŸÀÂÃÄ]");

string output = r.Replace(str, (Match m) => map[m.Value]);

Console.WriteLine(output);

Result

AAAoezYAAAAEZZZ

answered Dec 22 '09 at 15:53

YOU

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is this more or less resources and time consuming that string.replace("œ","oe"), etc...? – serhio Dec 22 '09 at 16:02
Normal string replace should be faster than regex – YOU Dec 22 '09 at 16:07

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 22 '09 at 15:23

0

I'm not aware of an easy way to do it using regex(not sure it is possible) but here is a clean way to do it:

var replaceChars = new Dictionary<string, string>
                   {
                       {"œ", "oe"},
                       {"ž", "z"}
                   };
string s = "ždfasœ";

foreach (var c in replaceChars)
    s = s.Replace(c.Key, c.Value);

Console.WriteLine(s);

answered Dec 22 '09 at 15:23

Yuriy Faktorovich

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StringBuilder would be a better solution. – Joe Dec 22 '09 at 18:17

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 22 '09 at 15:26

For string replacement, I'd just iterate through these in your mapping table and use string.Replace on them:

foreach(var r in replacements.Values)
{
    myString.Replace(r.Key, r);
}

Not the most performant, but if you don't have a lot of strings to go through it should be good enough :).

Regex Replace - Multiple Characters

3 Answers3