How to replace charecters in a string with wildcard

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Hi,

I want to replace 20120101 with a ?. But, the 20120101 string I search for won't always be the same. It will always start with a 2, and always contain 8 characters. It may be 20121225, 20130510, etc.

I have the following code and its working fine to integers.

C#

string MyString ="SELECT Stuff FROM Table WHERE Code = Foo AND DATE=20120101";
                            string Fixed = Regex.Replace(MyString, @"DATE=2\d{7}", "DATE=?");

now i want to do the same for string.

C#

string MyString ="SELECT Stuff FROM Table WHERE Code = Foo AND DATE=abcdefgh";
                            string Fixed = Regex.Replace(MyString, @"DATE=a\d{7}", "DATE=?");

this code is not replacing the text.

please help me

Posted 8-Apr-13 3:25am

Ayyappan Ravi

Updated 8-Apr-13 3:32am

Kenneth Haugland

v3

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OriginalGriff · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-08T03:36:00

Solution 1

That's because '\d' is rexeg-speak for a digit: '0' to '9', Since your string contains "abcdefgh" and no digits at all, it will never match.

Try

@"DATE=.{7}"

for seven of any character, or:

@"DATE=\w{7}"

for seven alphnumerics, or:

@"DATE=[a-zA-Z]{7}"

for seven upper or lower case alphabetics.

Get a copy of Expresso [^] - it's free, and it examines and generates Regular expressions.

Posted 8-Apr-13 3:36am

OriginalGriff

Comments

Ayyappan Ravi 8-Apr-13 9:40am

Thanks, This is exactly what i want....

OriginalGriff 8-Apr-13 9:45am

You're welcome!

Ayyappan Ravi 8-Apr-13 9:46am

Hi,

Which will support all characters includes alphabets,numeric and special charecters.

OriginalGriff 8-Apr-13 10:29am

'.' matches any single character, including decimals, alphas and special characters - seriously, get a copy of Expresso - it makes working them out a whole lot easier.