Regex.Replace

19 Apr 2006 6:50 PM

cj

I just ran across this in the VB help. Sounds perfect. Only they don't
tell me what namespace must be imported to use regex. I guess that's
the problem cause I pasted this into a test program and it tell me Regex
is not declared.

Function CleanInput(ByVal strIn As String) As String
' Replace invalid characters with empty strings.
Return Regex.Replace(strIn, "[^\w\.@-]", "")
End Function

19 Apr 2006 7:56 PM

cj

The help says, "CleanInput returns a string after stripping out all
nonalphanumeric characters except @, - (a dash), and . (a period)."

I also don't get what the \w\ stands for. I get [^.@-] mean anything
but the 3 characters following the ^. I'd assume \w\ means any
alphanumeric character but I don't see that in the documentation on
regular expressions. Can anyone shed any light on this?

cj wrote:
Show quoteHide quote

> I just ran across this in the VB help. Sounds perfect. Only they don't
> tell me what namespace must be imported to use regex. I guess that's
> the problem cause I pasted this into a test program and it tell me Regex
> is not declared.
>
> Function CleanInput(ByVal strIn As String) As String
> ' Replace invalid characters with empty strings.
> Return Regex.Replace(strIn, "[^\w\.@-]", "")
> End Function

20 Apr 2006 7:21 AM

Gary Chang[MSFT]

Hi,

>The help says, "CleanInput returns a string after stripping
>out all nonalphanumeric characters except @, - (a dash),
>and . (a period)."

The help is alright. The [^\w\.@-] should be parsed into [^\w], [^\.],
[^@], and [^-] seperately. The '\w' matches the same as '[A-Za-z0-9_]'.

Thanks!

Best regards,

Gary Chang
Microsoft Online Community Support
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20 Apr 2006 12:34 PM

cj

Thanks Gary,

Your explanation is really good. I had looked up Regular Expressions in
VB help and it gave me a long list but \w was not in the list. I've
been doing some web searches to learn more. VB help is not very helpful
to me any more.

Gary Chang[MSFT] wrote:
Show quoteHide quote

> Hi,
>
>> The help says, "CleanInput returns a string after stripping
>> out all nonalphanumeric characters except @, - (a dash),
>> and . (a period)."
>
> The help is alright. The [^\w\.@-] should be parsed into [^\w], [^\.],
> [^@], and [^-] seperately. The '\w' matches the same as '[A-Za-z0-9_]'.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Best regards,
>
> Gary Chang
> Microsoft Online Community Support
> ==================================================
> When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
> that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
> ==================================================
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
>

21 Apr 2006 2:19 AM

Gary Chang[MSFT]

You are very welcome, I am glad to discuss this problem with you. :)

Have a nice weekend!

Best regards,

Gary Chang
Microsoft Online Community Support
==================================================
When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
==================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

19 Apr 2006 8:23 PM

cj

system.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace

cj wrote:
Show quoteHide quote

> I just ran across this in the VB help. Sounds perfect. Only they don't
> tell me what namespace must be imported to use regex. I guess that's
> the problem cause I pasted this into a test program and it tell me Regex
> is not declared.
>
> Function CleanInput(ByVal strIn As String) As String
> ' Replace invalid characters with empty strings.
> Return Regex.Replace(strIn, "[^\w\.@-]", "")
> End Function