How to use RegEx to count case sensitive characters

[bnc1]

I am using Regex to do a simple count of certain characters in a string

Code: Select all

let>fen={"8/6pk/p2q3p/1p5P/2pbQ3/P1N5/1P3PP1/6K1"}
let>pattern=[<pnbrqk>]
regex>pattern,fen,1,matches,num,0
mdl>num

This code works fine and yields the expected result of 16. Now I would like to count only specific upper or lower case characters . For example if I could count just the upper case occurrences of PNBRQK I would get a result of 8.

I have looked at this forum thread http://www.mjtnet.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... pper+lower and have also looked at the website for EasyPatterns at http://www.datamystic.com/easypatterns_reference.html but I am not making any progress. I am fairly new to RegEx and any help would be appreciated

[Bob Hansen]

The default mode for this flavor of RegEx is ignore Case.
(?-i) is a flag to remove Ignore Case, make it Case Sensitive.
Put this modifier at the beginning of the Match Pattern (Needle)

Count UpperCase chars

Code: Select all

let>fen={"8/6pk/p2q3p/1p5P/2pbQ3/P1N5/1P3PP1/6K1"}
let>pattern=(?-i)[PNBRQK]
regex>%pattern%,%fen%,1,matches,num,0,,
mdl>num

Count LowerCase chars

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let>fen={"8/6pk/p2q3p/1p5P/2pbQ3/P1N5/1P3PP1/6K1"}
let>pattern=(?-i)[pnbrqk]
regex>%pattern%,%fen%,1,matches,num,0,,
mdl>num

Count all chars, ignore Case

Code: Select all

let>fen={"8/6pk/p2q3p/1p5P/2pbQ3/P1N5/1P3PP1/6K1"}
let>pattern=[PNBRQK]
regex>%pattern%,%fen%,1,matches,num,0,,
mdl>num

Thanks to Marcus who provided that info in an earlier post a few weeks ago.

[bnc1]

Thank you for the help

[jpuziano]

Hi Bob,

Would your examples read exactly the same if we did not use EasyPatterns (except for the 0 instead of the 1 for the EasyPatterns switch)?

[Bob Hansen]

Thanks for making me laugh.......

1. The answer is YES. I just tested the examples above and changed the Easy Pattern flag from 1 to 0.

2. I had to laugh, because I never noticed the flag value. I did not realize that Easy Patterns was set active.

I never use Easy Patterns, and have not tried to learn them yet. When I made the examples, I just copied the original sample and modified the search pattern by adding the (?-i) modifier to the front. Easy Patterns never crossed my mind. I will have to be more alert in the future.

Easy Patterns may be easier for those who are new to RegEx, I can't comment on that. Because I have worked with other "flavors" of RegEx in other programs I found it easier to keep working with what I knew. And one more note from the HELP on RegEx. Macro Scheduler's "flavor" is based on the PERL version. But many programmers may be more fmiliar with the versions from C#, Java, Javsscript, PHP, Python, Ruby, VB.Net, TextPad, and others.

[jpuziano]

Hi Bob,

Glad you enjoyed that. I've dabbled with EasyPatterns and have found I can do some things with them that I can't (or don't know how to) with a normal regex... or it would otherwise take more lines of code, for example:

• [mustBeginWith(...) ...], [mustNotBeginWith(...) ...]
  When a match is found, it must be/must not be preceded by what is in the brackets. The bracket contents are NOT included in the actual match. The bracket contents are limited to fixed length strings - so no '3+' etc are allowed. This must be the first part of your pattern.
  
  [mustBeginWith( 'hello' or 'goodbye' ) 'fred']

That makes it easy to parse text, find but throw away a label and capture just the text beside the label in the first match... using just one RegEx> command.

If anyone knows how to do this with a one-line regex command without using EasyPatterns, please post an example... always good to learn new tricks.

Take care

[Bob Hansen]

Hello jpuziano.....

I missed your request a few weeks ago, I just ran across this tonight...
Hope its not too late for you.

You asked for: [mustBeginWith( 'hello' or 'goodbye' ) 'fred']

This works for me:

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Let>vSample=hello fred,hi fred,goodbye fred,bye fred
Let>vHaystack=%vSample%
Let>vNeedle=(hello|goodbye) fred
RegEx>%vNeedle%,%vHaystack%,0,vMatch,vMatchNumber,0,,

Let>vCount=0
Let>vList=

Label>Loop
Let>vCount=%vCount%+1
Let>vItem=vMatch_%vCount%
Let>vList=%vList%%CRLF%%vItem%
If>%vCount%=%vMatchNumber%,End
Goto>Loop

Label>End
MessageModal>Found %vMatchNumber% matches: %CRLF%%vList%