# RegEx Pattern Question to Kem **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [September 30, 2021, 11:34pm UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856 "2021-09-30T23:34:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Martin_T)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2021, 11:34pm UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/1 "2021-09-30T23:34:08Z")
This is a new, maybe easy, question to our RegEx Pattern king @Kem_Tekinay. I’m looking for a working pattern to match this: > 1. Name // variable length, no whitespaces > 2. | // OPTIONAL: including optional .\* whitespaces before and behind | > 3. [0-9]+ // OPTIONAL > 4. / abc // OPTIONAL: including optional .\* whitespaces before # and the rest after / Examples: ```auto Valid: Test Test/follow us Test|1 Test | 100 Test | 1/follow us ``` ---
**Author:** ![Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/user_avatar/forum.xojo.com/kem_tekinay/32/154_2.png) [@Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Kem_Tekinay)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2021, 11:39pm UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/2 "2021-09-30T23:39:53Z")
Specifically what kind of white space? Just spaces, spaces and tabs, or linefeeds too? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Martin_T)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2021, 11:41pm UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/3 "2021-09-30T23:41:28Z")
Just normal whitespaces (ASCII: 32). If possible, could you please do it with subroutines, so we can get a better overview over the pattern? ```auto (?(DEFINE) ...single parts ) ``` ---
**Author:** ![Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/user_avatar/forum.xojo.com/kem_tekinay/32/154_2.png) [@Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Kem_Tekinay)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2021, 11:45pm UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/4 "2021-09-30T23:45:23Z")
Fyi, “whitespace” refers to spaces, tabs, vertical tabs, carriage returns, linefeeds, and some other invisible characters. > [@Martin\_T](#): > > If possible, could you please do it with subroutines, so we can get a better overview over the pattern? Funny guy. ---
**Author:** ![Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/user_avatar/forum.xojo.com/kem_tekinay/32/154_2.png) [@Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Kem_Tekinay)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2021, 11:53pm UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/5 "2021-09-30T23:53:56Z")
Try this: ```auto ^\w+( *\| *\d+)?( */ *.+)?$ ``` This assumes that each of these will be on a line by themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Martin_T)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 12:14am UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/6 "2021-10-01T00:14:19Z")
> [@Kem\_Tekinay](#): > > This assumes that each of these will be on a line by themselves. Right. Thanks Kem. This works for me: ```auto ^(?'Name'\w+)(?'Separator' *\| *)?(?'Number'\d+)?(?'Slash' */ *.*)?$ ``` ---
**Author:** ![Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/user_avatar/forum.xojo.com/kem_tekinay/32/154_2.png) [@Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Kem_Tekinay)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 12:24am UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/7 "2021-10-01T00:24:54Z")
That would match “name3”, fyi. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Martin_T)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 12:29am UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/8 "2021-10-01T00:29:20Z")
What do you mean? Since `name3` will be a “single” word without whitespace, it’ll be valid. ---
**Author:** ![Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/user_avatar/forum.xojo.com/kem_tekinay/32/154_2.png) [@Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Kem_Tekinay)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 12:52am UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/9 "2021-10-01T00:52:38Z")
Brain freeze. You’re right, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Martin_T)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 12:55am UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/10 "2021-10-01T00:55:41Z")
> [@Kem\_Tekinay](#): > > `\w+` This does not care about emojis or composite characters. > [@Martin\_T](#): > > `(?'Slash' */ *.*)` How can I add an alternative, say `++`. So `/`and `++` will be valid? ---
**Author:** ![Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/user_avatar/forum.xojo.com/kem_tekinay/32/154_2.png) [@Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Kem_Tekinay)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 1:16am UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/11 "2021-10-01T01:16:56Z")
```auto (\+\+|/) ``` ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Martin_T)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 1:28pm UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/12 "2021-10-01T13:28:57Z")
@Kem_Tekinay, how can the pattern also takes care about such a construction: ```auto 🙅🏿‍♂️/India HumanOf🙅🏿‍♂️/India ``` `🙅🏿‍♂️` / `HumanOf🙅🏿‍♂️` should be matched as **Name**. ---
**Author:** ![Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/user_avatar/forum.xojo.com/kem_tekinay/32/154_2.png) [@Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Kem_Tekinay)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 2:23pm UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/13 "2021-10-01T14:23:49Z")
Try this: ```auto ^(?'Name'(?:(?!\+\+|[\s/|[:punct:]]).)+)(?'Separator' *\| *)?(?'Number'\d+)?(?'Slash' *(?:/|\+\+) *.*)?$ ``` ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Martin_T)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 8:45pm UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/14 "2021-10-01T20:45:22Z")
Thanks @Kem_Tekinay, looks like the pattern works, but you RegExRX App doesn’t match the right selection range. I think you use `String.Length` instead of `String.Bytes` to select the right range. ![RegExRX](https://forum.xojo.com/uploads/default/original/2X/4/4921a3b00a49ff40da9e3cf488f71d4586868f4b.png) ---
**Author:** ![Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/user_avatar/forum.xojo.com/kem_tekinay/32/154_2.png) [@Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Kem_Tekinay)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 8:46pm UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/15 "2021-10-01T20:46:57Z")
I saw. I do some fancy things there to match bytes to characters, and it mostly works, but clearly failed here. I’ll have to see if a newer version of Xojo fixes those issues. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Martin_T)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2021, 3:51pm UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/16 "2021-10-02T15:51:15Z")
@Kem_Tekinay, for now it works great, but I need one more extension: ```auto Test[acdc]/follow us ``` `Test[acdc]` should be matched as **Name**. ---
**Author:** ![Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/user_avatar/forum.xojo.com/kem_tekinay/32/154_2.png) [@Kem\_Tekinay](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Kem_Tekinay)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2021, 3:30am UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/17 "2021-10-03T03:30:29Z")
Let try is this way. This pattern specifies what’s permitted, including every unicode character \>= 128 . It’s also in free-space mode for readability. If you want to allow any other characters (or not allow ones I’ve allowed), modify the ‘Name’ character class. ```auto (?x) ^ (?'Name' [\w[\]{}()\x{80}-\x{10ffff}]+) (?'Separator' \x20* \| \x20*)? (?'Number' \d+)? (?'Slash' \x20* (?:/|\+\+) \x20* .*)? $ ``` ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Martin\_T](https://forum.xojo.com/u/Martin_T)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2021, 9:44am UTC](https://forum.xojo.com/t/regex-pattern-question-to-kem/65856/18 "2021-10-03T09:44:18Z")
Thanks @Kem_Tekinay, looks good to me.