Regex Group not starting with

Question

I'm having trouble to compute 2 regex in one (used to deal with .ini files)

I've got this one (I suggest you to use rubular with theses examples to understand)

^(?<key>[^=;\r\n]+)=((?<value>\"*.*;*.*\"[^;\r\n]*);?(?<comment>.*)[^\r\n]*)

to match :

• This="isnot;acomment"
• This="isa";comment
• This="isa;special";case

And I've got this one :

^(?<key>[^=;\r\n]+)=(?<value>[^;\r\n]*);?(?<comment>[^\r\n]*)

to match

• This=isasimplecase
• This=isasimple;comment

And I'm trying to merge the 2 regex, sadly I do not manage to say "If my value group is not starting with \" use the second one if not use the first one".

Right now i've got this :

^(?<key>[^=;\r\n]+)=(((?<value>\"*.*;*.*\"[^;\r\n]*);?(?<comment>.*)[^\r\n]*)|(?<value>[^;\r\n]*);?(?<comment>[^\r\n]*))

But it's creating 2 more sections unnamed for the simple case without quoted. I was thinking that maybe by adding "the first item of the value group for the simple case must not start with \". But I didn't manage to do it.

PS : I suggest you to use rubular to understand better my problem. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough

Answer 1

How about this?

^(?<key>[^=;\r\n]+)=(?<value>"[^"]*"|[^;\n\r]*);?(?<comment>.*)

DEMO

• (?<key>[^=;\r\n]+) Matches the part before the = symbol.
• "[^"]*" Matches the string within the double quotes , ex strings like "foobar". If there is no " then the regex engine move on to the next pattern that is [^;\n\r]* and it matches upto the first ; or newline or \r character. These matched characters are stored into a named group called value.
• ;? Optional semicolon.
• (?<comment>.*) Remaining characters are stored into the comment group.