Regex to get a string between 2 strings, ignoring the start and end

Question

using regex to get a string between 2 strings and can't figure out how to ignore the start and end strings.

"imgurl=(.*?)&amp"

this expression working fine except i need to ignore imgurl= and &amp?

by matching the following string:

imgurl=mytext&amp

the result i got is like

imgurl=mytext&amp

it has to be

mytext

The mytext part will be in captured group 1 (indicated by the first set of brackets in the regex). What language/framework are you using for the regex? Often \1 or $1 refer to whatever's matched by the first set of brackets. — mathematical.coffee
– mathematical.coffee, Commented Nov 24, 2012 at 10:55
Telling us what language you're programming in might help in perl you are able to use $1 after matching something like that in php you have to add another variable at the end of the regexp_match and use the [1] index of that variable to see the correct result — jaggy
– jaggy, Commented Nov 24, 2012 at 10:55

Mike Pennington · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-24 11:01:46Z

2

You haven't specified the language, but be sure you are checking the appropriate match group...

>>> msg = "imgurl=mytext&amp"
>>> import re
>>> foo = re.search("imgurl=(.*?)&amp", msg)
>>> foo.group(1)
'mytext'
>>> foo.group(0)
'imgurl=mytext&amp'

Obviously, group 1 is what you're looking for...

EDIT

For vb.net code..

Dim regex As Regex = New Regex("imgurl=(.*?)&amp")
Dim match As Match = regex.Match("imgurl=mytext&amp")

Assuming you get the match, you need the value from match.Groups(1).Value

edited Nov 24, 2012 at 11:01

answered Nov 24, 2012 at 10:55

Mike Pennington

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1 Comment

Wiktor Stribiżew Over a year ago

For future readers: if your text spans across mutliple lines (contains newline symbols), you need to use RegexOptions.Singleline flag when compiling the Regex object.

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