Find specific instance of a match in string using RegEx

Question

I am very new to RegEx and I can't seem to find what I looking for. I have a string such as:

[cmdSubmitToDatacenter_Click] in module [Form_frm_bk_UnsubmittedWires]

and I want to get everything within the first set of brackets as well as the second set of brackets. If there is a way that I can do this with one pattern so that I can just loop through the matches, that would be great. If not, thats fine. I just need to be able to get the different sections of text separately. So far, the following is all I have come up with, but it just returns the whole string minus the first opening bracket and the last closing bracket:

[\[-\]]

(Note: I'm using the replace function, so this might be the reverse of what you are expecting.)

In my research, I have discovered that there are different RegEx engines. I'm not sure the name of the one that I'm using, but I'm using it in MS Access.

Please post the whole relevant code here. Isn't it VBA (Visual Basic for Applications)? BTW, even in VBA, `[\[-\]]` is not something that will match the whole string (it can match just 1 character). So, with replace, you will get `cmdSubmitToDatacenter_Click in module Form_frm_bk_UnsubmittedWires`. Try `(\[[^\[\]]*]).*` regex and use `$1` in the replacement. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Aug 11 '15 at 20:29
See this thread: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2403122/regular-expression-to-extract-text-between-square-brackets — Charlie Haley, Aug 11 '15 at 20:37
I never did come across that thread. Thanks for providing it. — kb9zzo, Aug 12 '15 at 13:15

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 11 '15 at 20:35

If you're using Access, you can use the VBScript Regular Expressions Library to do this. For example:

Const SOME_TEXT = "[cmdSubmitToDatacenter_Click] in module [Form_frm_bk_UnsubmittedWires]"

Dim re
Set re = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
re.Global = True
re.Pattern = "\[([^\]]+)\]"

Dim m As Object
For Each m In re.Execute(SOME_TEXT)
    Debug.Print m.Submatches(0)
Next

Output:

cmdSubmitToDatacenter_Click
Form_frm_bk_UnsubmittedWires

Thank-you so much. This is exactly what I was looking for. – kb9zzo Aug 12 '15 at 12:45 — kb9zzo, Aug 12 '15 at 12:45

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 12 '15 at 13:22

Here is what I ended up using as it made it easier to get the individual values returned. I set a reference to the Microsoft VBScript Regular Expression 5.5 so that I could get Intellisense help.

Public Sub GetText(strInput As String)
Dim regex As RegExp
Dim colMatches As MatchCollection
Dim strModule As String
Dim strProcedure As String

Set regex = New RegExp

With regex
    .Global = True
    .Pattern = "\[([^\]]+)\]"
End With

Set colMatches = regex.Execute(strInput)

With colMatches
    strProcedure = .Item(0).submatches.Item(0)
    strModule = .Item(1).submatches.Item(0)
End With

Debug.Print "Module: " & strModule
Debug.Print "Procedure: " & strProcedure

Set regex = Nothing
End Sub

Find specific instance of a match in string using RegEx

2 Answers2