topic Re: Regex help in Application Development and Automation Discussions

Regex help

aravind_indu — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 02:37:52 GMT

Hi,

I'm trying to develop a regex pattern to search a string. The string is like 'Aravind.Induchudan'.

Whatever before dot can be 3 to 7 characters and whatever after dot can be also 3 to 7 characters.

The regex pattern is '[A-Z]{3,10}\.[A-Z]{3,10}'.

The next rule the total length should be 10-18 characters. How to do this. Any help is appreciated.

Re: Regex help

bordaraju — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 02:54:16 GMT

Can you please try

^[A-Z]{3,7}\.[A-Z]{3,7}$

Re: Regex help

aravind_indu — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 03:55:21 GMT

My problem is with total length rule.

Re: Regex help

bordaraju — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 04:02:18 GMT

I guess we need to rely on strlen for that !

Re: Regex help

Sandra_Rossi — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 06:29:05 GMT

What kind of regex: POSIX, PCRE or other? If you don't know, please provide your minimal ABAP version. Why can't you use STRLEN?

Re: Regex help

catano — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 08:41:18 GMT

Hi @aravind_indu ,

I'm not sure if lookaheads are working, but with a Perl like syntax it is look like this:

^(?=.{10,18}$)[a-zA-Z]{3,10}\.[a-zA-Z]{3,10}$

Regards,
Peter

Re: Regex help

aravind_indu — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 08:43:38 GMT

Using callout it is possible.

DATA lv_text TYPE string VALUE `Aravind.Induchudan is a mail id. This is great.`.
lv_text = lv_text && ` Sam.Tom is another mail id. Anirudh.Induchud is another mail`.

CLASS handle_regex DEFINITION.
  PUBLIC SECTION.
    DATA lv_len TYPE i.
    INTERFACES if_abap_matcher_callout.
ENDCLASS.

CLASS handle_regex IMPLEMENTATION.
  METHOD if_abap_matcher_callout~callout.
    DATA lv_result TYPE if_abap_matcher_callout=>callout_result.
    IF callout_num EQ 1.
      lv_len = capture_last_len.
    ELSEIF callout_num EQ 2.
      lv_len = capture_last_len + lv_len.
      IF lv_len LT 10 OR lv_len GT 18.
        callout_result = IF_ABAP_MATCHER_CALLOUT=>c_callout_result-FAIL.
      ENDIF.
    ENDIF.
  ENDMETHOD.
ENDCLASS.

CLASS demo_pcre DEFINITION.
  PUBLIC SECTION.
    CLASS-METHODS main.
ENDCLASS.

CLASS demo_pcre IMPLEMENTATION.
  METHOD main.
    DATA(regex) = cl_abap_regex=>create_pcre(
      pattern = `(\w{3,10})(?C1)(\.)(?C3)(\w{3,10})(?C2)` ).

    DATA(matcher) = regex->create_matcher( text = lv_text ).

    DATA(handler) = NEW handle_regex( ).
    matcher->set_callout( handler ).
    DATA(lv_result) = matcher->match( ).

    TRY.
        CALL METHOD matcher->find_all
          RECEIVING
            matches = DATA(lt_result).
        LOOP AT lt_result INTO DATA(ls_result).
          WRITE: /, lv_text+ls_result-offset(ls_result-length).
        ENDLOOP.
      CATCH cx_sy_matcher.
    ENDTRY.

    cl_demo_output=>display( ).
  ENDMETHOD.
ENDCLASS.

START-OF-SELECTION.
  demo_pcre=>main( ).

Re: Regex help

Sandra_Rossi — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 09:16:45 GMT

This regex works also with POSIX regex.

Re: Regex help

Sandra_Rossi — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 09:32:20 GMT

Thanks, interesting to see a callout example. So, PCRE (since ABAP 7.55). I guess it's more an exercise than real life code, because testing the match length is a much shorter code:

FIND ALL OCCURRENCES OF PCRE '...' IN '...' RESULTS DATA(matches). LOOP AT matches WHERE length BETWEEN 10 AND 18... ... ENDLOOP.

More about PCRE/Callouts in ABAP: Modern Regular Expressions in ABAP - Part 1 - Intr... - SAP Community

Re: Regex help

aravind_indu — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 09:32:28 GMT

Thanks Peter

Re: Regex help

BaerbelWinkler — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 11:09:42 GMT

Do you have access to a NetWeaver ERP system? You could run program DEMO_REGEX_TOY via SE38 there and see what happens. It also has online help with many pointers regarding REGEX.

Re: Regex help

Vitaliy-R — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 15:30:55 GMT

Ensure your regex engine supports lookahead assertions (?=...) and then try

^(?=.{10,18}$)[A-Za-z]{3,7}\.[A-Za-z]{3,10}$

Re: Regex help

catano — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 13:06:04 GMT

Hi @aravind_indu ,

Have you managed to make it work maybe with the regexp?
Meaning that my answer is a solution?

Best,
Peter

Re: Regex help

aravind_indu — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 05:31:26 GMT

Yes Peter. It is working.

Re: Regex help

Vitaliy-R — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 12:33:12 GMT

Can you mark it as "answered" then @aravind_indu ?

Re: Regex help

catano — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 23:52:13 GMT

Wonderful, I'm glad it worked.