Question

Regex for String that ends with three possible variations

Quick Fields Laserfiche Pattern Matching and Regular Expressions

Updated June 23, 2022

asked on June 23, 2022 • Show version history

I've put together a regex that works in test environments (like regex101.com), but when I try to use it in Laserfiche I get a completely different result.

I'm looking to identify schools, and the schools all end with "Elementary", "Middle", or "Secondary"

"[A-Za-z '-.]*[A-Za-z'-.]\s+([Ee]lementary|[Mm]iddle|[Ss]econdary)"

So, for example on regex101, that regex identifies the string "John Wayne Middle" perfectly. However, in Laserfiche (when I use "Test the Pattern" or when I run a sample page through) it only resolves the word "Middle" from "John Wayne Middle".

Am I doing this wrong, doing this wrong in the world of Laserfiche, or is this just not how Laserfiche parses regex commands and I'm doomed to failure?

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Replies

replied on June 23, 2022 • Show version history

The parenthesis are saying "return only what is in here" which is why you are only getting the word Middle when searching John Wayne Middle.

When I test on regex101 that's what I see there too: See how Middle is flagged in green but the rest is not?

Perhaps try something like this:

[A-Za-z '-.]*\s+[Ee]lementary|[A-Za-z '-.]*\s+[Mm]iddle|[A-Za-z '-.]*\s+[Ss]econdary

Which is saying:
[A-Za-z '-.]*\s+[Ee]lementary
OR
[A-Za-z '-.]*\s+[Mm]iddle
OR
[A-Za-z '-.]*\s+[Ss]econdary

And seems to be working in my testing in Workflow.

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replied on June 23, 2022

Ok, I think I have it. Not exactly sure why I had to jump through the extra hoops, but:

[A-Za-z '-.]*[A-Za-z'-.]\s+(?:(?:[Ee]lementary|[Mm]iddle|[Ss]econdary)$)

If I read this correctly, I've put a Non-capturing group in a non-capturing group. But I hadn't marked the end of the input before, so maybe that's it?

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View 1 previous reply

replied on June 23, 2022 • Show version history

Weird, your original regex works for me:

Edit: Oh, wait, you're saying you want to read the "John Wayne" part, aren't you? That's because of the parentheses. They mark what you want extracted from the input value.

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replied on June 23, 2022

@████████ they got the same result as you. They want the whole school name. The capture group in the original is only for the last word "Elementary", "Middle", or "Secondary".

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replied on June 23, 2022

Exactly, but the updated regex seems to work.

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replied on June 23, 2022

You only needed to turn the original capture group (parentheses) into a non-capturing group (question-colon parentheses). I tested this and it works as desired.

Why do you think you need nested non-capturing groups and the end-of-input anchor? In particular, having the end-of-input character could cause a match failure in some circumstances that you'd expect it to succeed (e.g., if there is any text after "Middle").

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Regex for String that ends with three possible variations

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