Regular Expressions Cookbook

3.3. Creating Regular Expression Objects

Problem

You want to instantiate a regular expression object or otherwise compile a regular expression so you can use it efficiently throughout your application.

Solution

C#

If you know the regex to be correct:

Regex regexObj = new Regex("regex pattern");

If the regex is provided by the end user (UserInput being a string variable):

try {
    Regex regexObj = new Regex(UserInput);
} catch (ArgumentException ex) {
    // Syntax error in the regular expression
}

VB.NET

If you know the regex to be correct:

Dim RegexObj As New Regex("regex pattern")

If the regex is provided by the end user (UserInput being a string variable):

Try
    Dim RegexObj As New Regex(UserInput)
Catch ex As ArgumentException
    'Syntax error in the regular expression
End Try

Java

If you know the regex to be correct:

Pattern regex = Pattern.compile("regex pattern");

If the regex is provided by the end user (userInput being a string variable):

try {
	Pattern regex = Pattern.compile(userInput);
} catch (PatternSyntaxException ex) {
	// Syntax error in the regular expression
}

To be able to use the regex on a string, create a Matcher:

Matcher regexMatcher = regex.matcher(subjectString);

To use the regex on another string, you can create a new Matcher, as just shown, or reuse an existing one:

regexMatcher.reset(anotherSubjectString);

JavaScript

Literal regular expression in your code:

var myregexp = /regex pattern/;

Regular expression retrieved from user input, as a string stored in the variable userinput:

var myregexp ...