Regex, match a string between two characters that contains the same character to delimit

Question

I think that title may sound vague, but please do continue reading to understand what I mean.

Let's say I have this string:

TestBlock1 {    NestedBlock1.1    {
      Text = Text    } }
TestBlock2 {    NestedBlock2.1    {
      Text = Text    }    NestedBlock2.2    {
      Text = Text    } }

I want to be able to match the string by BlockName{...}. This is what I have tried:

[\w]+\s*{\s*[^.]+\s*}

The idea is to get the matches into an array.

string[] block;
block[0] = TestBlock1 { NestedBlock1.1 { Text = Text } }
block[1] = TestBlock2 { NestedBlock2.1 { Text = Text } NestedBlock2.2 { Text = Text } }

The problem is that it gets the whole string. Is it even remotely possible of getting a string between two characters that also contains the "delimiter" characters?

You can't use standard regular expressions to match nested constructs. You may have to write a parser. — arshajii, Feb 23 '14 at 13:28
Which regex engine are you using? (This is required information for all questions tagged `regex`.) Some modern engines support recursion. — Tim Pietzcker, Feb 23 '14 at 13:37
@Tim: At the moment, I am using regexpal.com to test, but the end usage will be in C#. — TacticalNinja, Feb 24 '14 at 06:09
@arshajii: After days of playing with regex, I was convinced that I'll probably just do a code solution instead if it really is not possible to use regex. — TacticalNinja, Feb 24 '14 at 06:12

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 23 '14 at 14:04

In .NET (which support recursive regexes), you can use

Regex regexObj = new Regex(
    @"\w+\s+        # Match identifier
    \{              # Match {
    (?>             # Then either match (possessively):
     (?:            # the following group which matches
      (?![{}])      # only if we're not before a { or }
      .             # any character
     )+             # once or more
    |               # or
     \{ (?<Depth>)  # { (and increase the braces counter)
    |               # or
     \} (?<-Depth>) # } (and decrease the braces counter).
    )*              # Repeat as needed.
    (?(Depth)(?!))  # Assert that the braces counter is at zero.
    \}              # Then match }.", 
    RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace | RegexOptions.Singleline);

I'll give this a try. I didn't realize that this is *almost* if not a duplicate question [link](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14407821/c-sharp-regex-how-to-remove-multiple-paired-parentheses-from-string) also answered by you. — TacticalNinja, Feb 24 '14 at 06:23

Regex, match a string between two characters that contains the same character to delimit

1 Answers1