• *AVERAGE Function
• *COUNT Function
• *counter Function
• *FOR_EACH Function
• *LINE_INSERT Function
• *LINE_REMOVE Function
• *LINE_REPLACE Function
• *MAX Function
• *MIN Function
• *PATTERN_EXTRACT Function
• *PATTERN_LOOKUP Function
• *PATTERN_LOOKUPI Function
• *REMOVE_DUPLICATES Function
• *REMOVE_DUPLICATESI Function
• *REVERSE_WORDS Function
• *TOTAL Function
• *WORD Function
• *WORD_INSERT Function
• *WORD_REMOVE Function
• *WORD_REPLACE Function
• *WORDI Function
• a5_arguments_dbflist Function
• a5_autocomplete_list Function
• a5_define_parameters Function
• a5_get_parameters Function
• a5_get_writeable_drives Function
• a5_getaddinsinstalled Function
• a5_progresslist Function
• a5_window_list Function
• COMMA_TO_CRLF Function
• COUNTRIESOFWORLD Function
• COUNTRYLOOKUP Function
• CRLF_TO_COMMA Function
• CSTATE Function
• CSTATE_ABREVLOOKUP Function
• CSTATES Function
• EXTRACT_ALL_STRINGS Function
• FILTER_STRING_MULTI Function
• FILTER_STRING_SMATCH Function
• FILTER_STRINGC Function
• INLIST2 Function
• inlistn Function
• IS_ONE_OF Function
• keylist_filtered_build Function
• POS_FROM_WORD_NUMBER Function
• REGION_FROM_AREACODE Function
• REMOVE_BLANK_LINES Function
• SortList_On_ReferenceList Function
• TAGGED_PATTERN Function
• UniqueNameGet Function
• WORD_CHANGE Function
• WORD_DUPLICATES Function
• WORD_EVALUATE Function
• WORD_EXISTS Function
• WORD_EXISTS_C Function
• WORD_i Function
• WORD_MOVE Function
• WORD_NUM Function
• WORD_NUMBER_GET Function
• WORD_REMOVE Function
• WORD_REPLACE Function
• WORD_SUBTRACT Function
• WORD_SUBTRACTC Function
• WORD_TAGGED_PATTERN Function

*PATTERN_EXTRACT Function

Syntax

Arguments

Result

The processed text after substitutions.

text

The text to analyze for patterns.

patterns

Each line in Patterns is an Output mask, followed by a pipe "|" separator, followed by an Input mask. The mask takes the form of a SMATCH()pattern where an asterisk "*" or any sequence of "?" characters are treated as wildcard characters. The input pattern of a single "*" is special; it means use this rule for the remainder. Output_Mask1 | InputMask1 Output_Mask2 | InputMask2 ... Output_MaskN | InputMaskN

Description

Extract patterns from text - returns a cr-lf delimited list of patterns.

Discussion

The *PATTERN_EXTRACT() function extracts patterns from text and returns a CR-LF delimited list of patterns.

Example

Here is a string that has a format similar to the menu string - with embedded parameters of the form {NAME=SETTING} - in this example, only two patterns are needed to digest the menu parameters.

? *pattern_extract("{ENABLE=.t.}{DATA=ONE}{IMAGE=$a5_open}Entry One..","*=\"*\"|{*=*}"+crlf() +"TEXT=\"*\"|*")
= ENABLE=".t."
DATA="ONE"
IMAGE="$a5_open"
TEXT="Entry One.."

The function first identifies the strings bounded by braces "{}" using pattern1 and outputs the results as ENABLE=".t." DATA="ONE" IMAGE="$a5_open". This produces the first 3 lines of the output. The remainder of the input string is "Entry One..". The function uses the second pattern to output TEXT="Entry One..". Run the following code in a script to see a more complete example of how the function operates.

dim patterns as C
dim result as C
dim text as C
patterns = <<%str%
SETTING.*=*|{*=*}
BUTTON=*|<*>
CONTROL=*|*
PLAINTEXT=*|*
%str%
text = <<%str%
Text contains FName{ENABLE=.t.}{DATA=COMPLETE} embedded items
%str%
result = *pattern_extract(text,patterns)
ui_dlg_box("Test",<<%dlg%
%M%.40,20patterns%W%.40,20text%M%.40,20result|
{region}
;

{endregion}
%dlg%,<<%code%
if a_dlg_button = "Recalc" then
    a_dlg_button = ""
    result = *pattern_extract(text,patterns)
end if
%code%)

See Also

• List Processing Functions