how to write a regex in Matlab to select part of a string?

Question

Given these strings:

var-nvar-ar var-nvar-br var-int-ar var-int-br oth-nvar-ar oth-nvar-br oth-int-ar oth-int-br

I would like to write a regex that selects all the strings that contain my substring if the substring is:

between the beginning of string and -

or

between - and -

or

between - and the end of the string

So if substring = 'var' then the regex would select

var-nvar-ar var-nvar-br var-int-ar var-int-br

I tried:

strings = {'var-nvar-ar' 'var-nvar-br' 'var-int-ar' 'var-int-br' 'oth-nvar-ar' 'oth-nvar-br' 'oth-int-ar' 'oth-int-br'}

regexp(strings,'[^|(*?-)]var[(-.*)|$]','match')

but the result wasn't what I had in mind.

chappjc · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-02 00:10:05Z

1

To use an OR operation (|), a.k.a. alternation, it needs to be inside of a sub-expression () rather than a character set []. Instead of,

regexp(strings,'[^|(*?-)]var[(-.*)|$]','match')

use

regexp(strings,'(^|(*?-))var((-.*)|$)','match','once')

answered Apr 2, 2014 at 0:10

chappjc

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