RegexReplace (String function)

Replace regex match(es) (String class)

This intrinsic function searches a given string for matches of a regular expression, and replaces matches with, or according to, a specified replacement string. The function stops after the first match and replace, or it can continue searching and replacing until no more matches are found.

Matches are obtained according to the "rules" of regular expression matching.

RegexReplace is available as of version 7.2 of the Sirius Mods.

Syntax

%outString = string:RegexReplace( regex, replacement, [Options= string]) Throws InvalidRegex

Syntax terms

%outStr	A string set to the value of string with each matched substring replaced by the value of replacement.
regex	A string that is interpreted as a regular expression and that is applied to the method object string to find the one or more string substrings matched by regex.
replacement	The string that replaces the substrings of string that regex matches. Except when the 'A' option is specified (as described below for the Options argument), you can include markers in the replacement value to indicate where to insert corresponding captured strings — strings matched by capturing groups (parenthesized subexpressions) in regex, if any. As in Perl, these markers are in the form '$n', where n is the number of the capture group, and 1 is the number of the first capture group. n must not be 0 or contain more than 9 digits. If a capturing group makes no matches (is positional, for example), or if there was no nth capture group corresponding to the '$n' marker in a replacement string, the value of '$n' used in the replacement string is the empty string. 'xxx$1' is an example of a valid replacement string, and '$0yyy' is an example of an invalid one. Or you can use the format '$mn', where m is one of the following modifiers: U or u Specifies that the specified captured string should be uppercased when inserted. L or l Indicates that the captured string should be lowercased when inserted. The only characters you can escape in a replacement string are dollar sign ('$'), backslash ('\'), and the digits '0' through '9'. So only these escapes are respected: '\\', '\$', and '\0' through '\9'. No other escapes are allowed in a replacement string — this includes "shorthand" escapes like '\d' — and an "unaccompanied" backslash ('\') is an error. For example, since the scan for the number that accompanies the meta-$ stops at the first non-numeric, you use '1$1\2' to indicate that the first captured string should go between the numbers 1 and 2 in the replacement string. An invalid replacement string results in request cancellation.
Options=opts	The Options argument (name required) is an optional string of options. The options are single letters, which may be specified in uppercase or lowercase, in any combination, and separated by blanks or not separated. See Common regex options. I Do case-insensitive matching between string and regex. S Dot-All mode: a dot ('.') can match any character, including carriage return and linefeed. M Multi-line mode: let anchor characters match end-of-line indicators wherever the indicator appears in the input string. M mode is ignored if C (XML Schema) mode is specified. C Do the match according to XML Schema regex rules. Each regex is implicitly anchored at the beginning and end, and no characters serve as anchors. G Replace every occurrence of the match, not just (as in non-G mode) the first matched substring only. A Copy the replacement string as is. Do not recognize escapes; interpret a '$n' combination as a literal and not as a special marker; and so on.

Exceptions

This intrinsic function can throw the following exceptions:

InvalidRegex

If the regex parameter does not contain a valid regular expression. The exception object indicates the position of the character in the regex parameter where it was determined that the regular expression is invalid, and a description of the nature of the error.

Usage notes

• It is strongly recommended that you protect your environment from regular expression processing demands on PDL and STBL space by setting, say, 'UTABLE LPDLST 3000' and 'UTABLE LSTBL 9000'. See User Language programming considerations.
• Within a regular expression, characters enclosed by a pair of unescaped parentheses form a "subexpression." A subexpression is a capturing group if the opening parenthesis is not followed by a question mark (?). A capturing group that is nested within a non-capturing subexpression is still a capturing group.
• In Perl, '$n' markers ('$1', for example) enclosed in single quotes are treated as literals instead of as "that which was captured by the first capturing parentheses." RegexReplace uses the 'A' option of the Options argument for this purpose.
• A regex may "succeed" but match no characters. For example, a quantifier like '?' is allowed by definition to match no characters, though it tries to match one. RegexReplace honors such a zero-length match by substituting the specified replacement string at the current position. If the global option is in effect, the regex is then applied again one position to the right in the input string, and again, until the end of the string. The regex '9?' globally applied to the string 'abc' with a comma-comma (,,) replacement string results in this output string: ',,a,,b,,c,,'.
• Say you want to supply end tags to items of of the form '<img foo="bar">', converting them to '<img foo="bar"></img>'. You decide to use the following regex to capture 'img' tags that have attributes:

   (<img .*>)

And you use the following replacement string to replace the captured string with the captured string plus an appended '</img>':

   $1</img>

However, if the regex above is applied to the string '<body><img src="foo" width="24"></body>', the end tag '</img>' is not inserted after the first closing angle bracket ('>') after "24" as you want. Instead, the matched string greedily extends to the second closing angle bracket, and the tag '</img>' is positioned at the end:

   <body><img src="foo" width="24"></body></img>

One remedy for this situation is to use the following regex, which employs a negated character class to match non-closing-bracket characters:

   (<img [ˆ>]*>)

This regex does not extend beyond the first closing angle bracket in the target input string, and the resulting output string is:

   <body><img src="foo" width="24"></img></body>

• For information about additional methods that support regular expressions, see Regex Processing.

Examples

In the following example, the regex '(5.)' is applied repeatedly (global option) to the string '5A5B5C5D5E' to replace the uppercase letters with their lowercase counterparts. The '$L1' %replacement value makes the replacement string equal to whatever is matched by the capturing group, '(5.)', in the regex (the 'L' causes the lowercase versions of the captured letters to be used).

   begin
    %regex longstring
    %inStr longstring
    %replacement longstring
    %outStr longstring
    %opt string len 10

    %inStr='5A5B5C5D5E'
    %regex='(5.)'
    %replacement='$L1'
    %opt='g'
    %outStr = %inStr:Regexreplace(%regex, %replacement, options=%opt)
    printText OutputString: '{%outStr}'
   end

The example result is:

   OutputString: '5a5b5c5d5e'

The non-capturing regex '5.' matches and replaces the same substrings as the capturing group '(5.)', but '(5.)' is used above to take advantage of the self-referring marker for the replacement string, '$L1', which is valid only for capturing groups.

See also

List of intrinsic String methods