Not terminated set of [] in regex (C#)

Question

I'm trying to parse a text looking for data inside this pattern:

{{([^]+)}}

i.e. any sequence of characters between {{ and }} . But, when I try to build a Regex object:

Regex _regex = new Regex("{{([^]+)}}", RegexOptions.Compiled);

I got this error:

analysis of "{{([^]+)}}" - Set of [] not terminated....

whatever it means... Someone has an hint?

`^` means exclude, so there are no characters in your group. — SLaks, Feb 04 '18 at 15:23
yes exclude any elements in a void group... i.e. include everything... what's a way to create a group that accepts any sequence? — weirdgyn, Feb 04 '18 at 15:24
`Regex _regex = new Regex("{{(.+)}}", RegexOptions.Singleline);`. ECMAScript `[^]` = `(?s:.)` in .NET — Wiktor Stribiżew, Feb 04 '18 at 15:45

Tommaso Belluzzo · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-04T15:31:49.860

1

The purpose of [^...] is to negate character classes present in the specified list. After the ^ symbol, in order to define a correct regular expression, you should include a set of characters to exclude like, for example [^a]+ (this matches one or more characters that don't include the literal a).

The regex you are attempting to define is probably:

{{\s*([\w]+)\s*}}

Visit this link for trying a working demo.

edited Feb 04 '18 at 15:31

answered Feb 04 '18 at 15:24

Tommaso Belluzzo

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 04 '18 at 15:25

1

This is because [^] is not a valid regex, because you need to specify at least one symbol that you wish to exclude.

In order to capture the string up to the closing }} change the expression to this:

{{((?:[^}]|}[^}])*)}}

Demo.

answered Feb 04 '18 at 15:25

Sergey Kalinichenko

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Not terminated set of [] in regex (C#)

2 Answers2