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Use Regular Expression in Your C++ Program

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25 Jan 2001 69.5K   20   27
How to use the Microsoft regular expression object in your C++ program

Introduction

Regular expression provides a convenient way to specify complicated string pattern for search, replace or validate the text input. Since it is very useful, many people wrote their own library. Many libraries I found are buggy and it takes a lot of time to debug source code. However, actually you do not need to search any more, since there is already one built in your computer for free – the regular expression parser written by Microsoft.

As many other utilities, Microsoft provides this functionality using COM interface. It is easy to find this COM server object, named Microsoft VBScript Regular Expressions 5.5, with the tool oleview:

One problem is that there is no type library associated with this DLL. Fortunately, it is not a big deal since we have the IDL definition. From OleView, save the IDL definition into a file and use MIDL to compile it, you will get type library. After that, we can use this type library within our C++ program. Suppose we have this file named RegExp.tlb.

Image 1

Use Regular Expression

You can find all the documentation in either MSDN or the URL http://msdn.microsoft.com/scripting/default.htm?/scripting/vbscript/doc/vsobjregexp.htm. Though it is for scripting, you can still use them directly with the help of the newly-added keyword #import since Visual C++ 6. Generally you define a pattern, then you can test this pattern against the input string or execute to see whether there are any matches.

To demonstrate its usage, we wrote a custom DDX routine to verify the input of a control in a dialog. The function prototype is listed as follows:

C++
void WINAPI DDX_RegExp(CDataExchange* pDX, int nIDC, LPCTSTR lpszPattern, CString& value);

If the control input exactly matches the specified pattern (lpszPattern), the validation is passed, otherwise a message box will pop up.

C++
#import "RegExp.tlb" no_namespace
...
void AFXAPI DDX_RegExp(CDataExchange* pDX, int nIDC, LPCTSTR lpszPattern, CString& value)
{
	try {
	static IRegExpPtr regExp( __uuidof(RegExp) );
	regExp->Pattern = _bstr_t(lpszPattern);
	
     HWND hWndCtrl = pDX->PrepareEditCtrl(nIDC);
      if (pDX->m_bSaveAndValidate)
      {
            int nLen = ::GetWindowTextLength(hWndCtrl);
            ::GetWindowText(hWndCtrl, value.GetBufferSetLength(nLen),nLen+1);
            value.ReleaseBuffer();

			//now we verify it
			if ( regExp->Test( (LPCTSTR)value) )
			{
				IMatchCollectionPtr matches=regExp->Execute((LPCTSTR)value);
				if ( matches->Count== 1)
				{
					IMatchPtr match = matches->Item[0];
					if ( match->FirstIndex==0 && match->Length == value.GetLength() )
					{
						return;
					}
				}
			}
			CString strMsg = CString("The input does not exactly have the pattern ") + 
                                      lpszPattern;
			pDX->m_pDlgWnd->MessageBox(strMsg);
			pDX->PrepareEditCtrl(nIDC);
			pDX->Fail();
      }
      else
      {
      }
	}
	catch (_com_error& e)
	{
		AfxMessageBox( e.ErrorMessage() );
	}
}

In the code above, we first use Test method to see whether there is a match. If there is one, we use Execute method to retrieve all the matches. There should be only one match.

After we define that, we can use this function in our MFC application. Note that you must initialize the COM library first in your application. The following will validate an input box to see if it matches the phone number format:

C++
DDX_RegExp(pDX, IDC_INPUT, _T("\\d{3}-\\d{3}-\\d{4}"), m_strInput);

In this way, you can write validation code for a more complicated pattern. The COM makes things a lot easier.

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it, but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt, please contact the author via the discussion board below. A list of licenses authors might use can be found here.


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Comments and Discussions

 
GeneralIRegExpPtr : undeclared identifier Pin
ajitatif angajetor26-Jan-09 0:40
ajitatif angajetor26-Jan-09 0:40 
GeneralRe: IRegExpPtr : undeclared identifier [modified] Pin
AndreBroz14-Jul-09 2:28
AndreBroz14-Jul-09 2:28 
GeneralRe: IRegExpPtr : undeclared identifier Pin
ineox24-Mar-10 2:40
ineox24-Mar-10 2:40 
GeneralGlobal p arameter won't work (for me) Pin
arkyc6-May-03 17:37
arkyc6-May-03 17:37 
GeneralRe: Global p arameter won't work (for me) Pin
arkyc6-May-03 17:43
arkyc6-May-03 17:43 
GeneralRe: Global p arameter won't work (for me) Pin
AndreBroz14-Jul-09 2:18
AndreBroz14-Jul-09 2:18 
QuestionHow can i know all the members of these class! What form they are? Pin
Davidlou13-Mar-02 7:18
Davidlou13-Mar-02 7:18 
QuestionHow to Uninitialize Object Pin
NIrving18-Nov-01 0:01
NIrving18-Nov-01 0:01 
AnswerRe: How to Uninitialize Object Pin
Philip Patrick31-Jan-02 7:57
professionalPhilip Patrick31-Jan-02 7:57 
AnswerRe: How to Uninitialize Object Pin
14-Feb-02 13:16
suss14-Feb-02 13:16 
Generalregex Pin
Tomaz Stih4-Mar-01 23:45
Tomaz Stih4-Mar-01 23:45 
GeneralRe: regex Pin
4-Jan-02 3:27
suss4-Jan-02 3:27 
GeneralAbout the type library... Pin
Patrick Dell'Era21-Oct-00 11:00
sussPatrick Dell'Era21-Oct-00 11:00 
GeneralRe: About the type library... [modified] Pin
AndreBroz13-Jul-09 21:42
AndreBroz13-Jul-09 21:42 
GeneralSome details Pin
Roberto Guerzoni17-Oct-00 5:50
professionalRoberto Guerzoni17-Oct-00 5:50 
GeneralRe: Some details Pin
Sherwood Hu17-Oct-00 6:51
Sherwood Hu17-Oct-00 6:51 
GeneralThis macro is no longer needed Pin
Sherwood Hu17-Oct-00 7:46
Sherwood Hu17-Oct-00 7:46 
GeneralRe: This macro is no longer needed Pin
Roberto Guerzoni18-Oct-00 2:06
professionalRoberto Guerzoni18-Oct-00 2:06 
GeneralRe: This macro is no longer needed Pin
Otis B18-Oct-00 5:51
sussOtis B18-Oct-00 5:51 
GeneralThe solution Pin
Sherwood Hu18-Oct-00 6:50
Sherwood Hu18-Oct-00 6:50 
GeneralProblem with USES_CONVERSION Pin
Roberto Guerzoni16-Oct-00 22:18
professionalRoberto Guerzoni16-Oct-00 22:18 
GeneralRe: Problem with USES_CONVERSION Pin
Simon L Capewell16-Oct-00 23:41
Simon L Capewell16-Oct-00 23:41 
GeneralClever Idea Pin
Uwe Keim16-Oct-00 20:01
sitebuilderUwe Keim16-Oct-00 20:01 
GeneralRe: Clever Idea Pin
William E. Kempf17-Oct-00 7:02
William E. Kempf17-Oct-00 7:02 
GeneralRe: Clever Idea Pin
Uwe Keim17-Oct-00 20:26
sitebuilderUwe Keim17-Oct-00 20:26 

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