RegEx in Outlook VBA to get text from Email Body

Question

I need to extract text from an email body using a RegEx. I'm using Outlook 2010 with the MS VBScript 5.5 regex engine. The text i'm trying to extract is:

MessageID                              :1079247881
InstrumentID                         :DS5431460001

So far, I've come up with:

MessageID\s*\:(\d+)\n
InstrumentID\s+\:([a-z]{2}\d+)\n

Both are working now. Here are my tests:

InstrumentID

MessageID

Ultimately, I want to highlight a specific message and run my code. It will then extract those 2 items from that message and put them into a template for me to send. I'm doing ok on that part. I just need help with the RegExs.

Ok, I've figured out the first one and updated my post. Now working on the second one. — Matt Williamson, Dec 03 '15 at 16:23
So, what do you still need? You want *one* regex for both cases? — Bram Vanroy, Dec 03 '15 at 16:38
So is there anything else you need? Also note that `\w{2}\d+` is a strange construct. `\w` doesn't only check alphabetical, but rather alphanumerical values. What you may need is `[a-z]{2}\d+`. — Bram Vanroy, Dec 03 '15 at 16:42
@BramVanroy Is that possible? I'm not really sure if I need it because I think I can just do submatches(0) and (1). It would be cool to see it though. — Matt Williamson, Dec 03 '15 at 16:45
My current answer provides a good regex, however I'm unsure how you can return *all* matches in VB. — Bram Vanroy, Dec 03 '15 at 16:52

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

2

If you want to work with one regular expression, you could do something like this:

(?:Message|Instrument)ID\s+:(\w+)

I am unfamiliar with VB and its regexes implementation, but it seems you can do something like this (adapted and borrowed from here).

Function TestRegExp(myString As String)
   'Create objects.
   Dim objRegExp As RegExp
   Dim objMatch As Match
   Dim colMatches   As MatchCollection
   Dim RetStr As String

   ' Create a regular expression object.
   Set objRegExp = New RegExp

   'Set the pattern by using the Pattern property.
   objRegExp.Pattern = "(?:message|instrument)ID\s+:(\w+)"

   ' Set Case Insensitivity.
   objRegExp.IgnoreCase = True

   'Set global applicability.
   objRegExp.Global = True

   'Test whether the String can be compared.
   If (objRegExp.Test(myString) = True) Then

   'Get the matches.
    Set colMatches = objRegExp.Execute(myString)   ' Execute search.



If (objRegExp.Test(myString) = True) Then

'Get the matches.
Set colMatches = objRegExp.Execute(myString)   ' Execute search.

For Each objMatch In colMatches   ' Iterate Matches collection.
  MsgBox objMatch.SubMatches(0)
Next
End If
End Function

edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

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answered Dec 03 '15 at 16:48

Bram Vanroy

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Thanks Bram this only matches the first one though. I was doing something similar to this using the Pipe before but that wasn't working either. – Matt Williamson Dec 03 '15 at 16:58
@MattWilliamson As you can see, there is a `for each` loop near the end, which should iterate over all matches. – Bram Vanroy Dec 03 '15 at 16:59
Yes, thank you. I wrote my comment before the post was updated with the VBA code. – Matt Williamson Dec 03 '15 at 17:04
@MattWilliamson I updated the code again. Have a look! – Bram Vanroy Dec 03 '15 at 17:09
1

Thanks again Bram. I had to use a loop with the submatches collection. I updated your code to reflect this. – Matt Williamson Dec 03 '15 at 17:29

RegEx in Outlook VBA to get text from Email Body

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