I need to parse a URL in the following format:
http://www.example.com/?method=example.method&firstKey=firstValue&id=1893736&thirdKey=thirdValue
All I need is the value of 1893736 within &id=1893736.
I need to do the parsing in Objective-C for my iPhone project. I understand it must have something to do with regular expression. But I just have no clue how to do it.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. :)
You don't need a regex for this. You can try something like this
NSString *url = @"http://www.example.com/?method=example.method&firstKey=firstValue&id=1893736&thirdKey=thirdValue";
NSString *identifier = nil;
for (NSString *arg in [[[url pathComponents] lastObject] componentsSeparatedByString:@"&"]) {
if ([arg hasPrefix:@"id="]) {
identifier = [arg stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"id=" withString:@""];
}
}
NSLog(@"%@", identifier);
Don't use regular expressions. Use NSURL to reliably extract the query string and then use this answer's code to parse the query string.
Use this:
.*/\?(?:\w*=[^&]*&)*?(?:id=([^&]*))(?:&\w*=[^&]*)*
And grap first group: \1. You will obtain 1893736.
If the id can consist of only digits:
.*/\?(?:\w*=[^&]*&)*?(?:id=(\d*))(?:&\w*=[^&]*)*
If you don't care about capturing uninterested groups (use \3 or id in this case):
.*/\?(\w*=.*?&)*?(id=(?<id>\d*))(&\w*=.*)*
More simpler version (use \3):
.*/\?(.*?=.*?&)*(id=(\d*))(&.*?=.*)*
@".*id=(\\d*)" would be adequate?
http://www.example.com/?pid=1893736&id=123&cid=234 the regex you suggested will match 234.@".*&id=(\\d*)"id not necessary: http://www.example.com/?id=1893736. But, if OP approves that the id can consist of only digits, then replacing id=([^&]*) with id=(\d*) simplifies my regex, as you suggested.[^&]*& can be simplified to .*?&.Instead of using regex, you can split the string representation of your NSURL instance. In your case, you can split the string by the appersand (&), loop the array looking for the prefix (id=), and get the substring from the index 2 (which is where the = ends).
lastIndexOf,SubstrandSplit