return string based on wildcard in c#

Question

I have tried to find a method in c# to return a string of a wildcard match, however I can only find information on how to return if it contains the wildcard match, not the string the wildcard match represents.

For example,

var myString = "abcde werrty qweert";
var newStr = MyMatchFunction("a*e", myString);
//myString = "abcde"

How would I create MyMatchFunction? I have searched around on stackoverflow, but everything that has to do with c# and wildcard is just returning boolean values on if the string contains the wildcard string, and not the string it represents.

Possible duplicate of [Splitting a string in C#](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15421651/splitting-a-string-in-c-sharp) — Rudresha Parameshappa, Jun 05 '18 at 19:36
Possible duplicate of [Matching strings with wildcard](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30299671/matching-strings-with-wildcard) — Xiaoy312, Jun 05 '18 at 19:40

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 06 '18 at 07:55

3

Have you considered using Regex?

For instance, with the pattern a.*?e, you could achieve this effect

string sample  = "abcde werrty qweert";
string pattern = "a.*?e";
Regex rgx      = new Regex(pattern, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
MatchCollection matches = rgx.Matches(sample);

foreach (Match match in matches)
    Console.WriteLine(match.Value);

Which would print out

abcde

edited Jun 06 '18 at 07:55

AustinWBryan

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answered Jun 05 '18 at 19:30

N.D.C.

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It does not match for input `"ae"`! Use `"a.*?e"` instead of `"a.+?e"`! – Hossein Golshani Jun 05 '18 at 20:22

Hossein Golshani · Answer 2 · 2018-06-05T20:19:42.993

Default of wildcard search for "abcde werrty qweert" with pattern of "a*b" will returns "abcde werrty qwee", but you can use gready search for the result of "abcde".

Function for WildCard match using Regex:

public static string WildCardMatch(string wildcardPattern, string input, bool Greedy = false)
{
    string regexPattern = wildcardPattern.Replace("?", ".").Replace("*", Greedy ? ".*?" : ".*");
    System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match m = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Match(input, regexPattern, 
        System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
    return m.Success ? m.Value : String.Empty;
}

Result:

var myString = "abcde werrty qweert";

var newStr = WildCardMatch("a*e", myString);
//newStr = "abcde werrty qwee"

newStr = WildCardMatch("a*e", myString, Greedy: true);
//newStr = "abcde"

return string based on wildcard in c#

2 Answers2