How to search word inside single line using regular expression

Question

string patname ="enter pat name";
patname = "text";
patname = " text pat";

Hi, I want to search "pat" in the above statement using regular expression of visual studio. I tried using Pat{([^a-zA-Z]|$)} this , but it will also search the 2nd line which i really don't want. I want pat to be search inside a string value which starts from " follwoed by any char and then "pat". I mean pat can come anywhere ,i.e. either in start,middle or end.

does somebody hav idea how to do tht?

Answer 1

should be something like:

/.*pat.*/

which . indicates wild char in regex, and .* means any number of occurence of any character

Answer 2

How about using word boundaries?

In Visual Studio:

<pat>

Re-reading your question you'll only want the 'pat' inside a string so

"[^"]*<pat>[^"]*"

is probably a better expression.

Answer 3

So you want to look for "pat" in a string in your source code? There are some issues with that... in particular:

1: handling the quotes is awkward (to separate the literal part of the string as opposed to variables etc) - especially with 2 types of escaping; @"""" and "\""

2: in a verbatim string literal, pat could be on the next line but still in the string:

string s = @"abc
def pat ghi";

However, for a rough search, something like:

\".+pat

may help

Answer 4

If I understood you correctly regex you are looking for is just simply

\".+\bpat\b

If you want whole line to be found use

.*\".+\bpat\b.*

To clarify: \b's mean word boundaries. If you want 'pat' to be a part of a word remove them.

Answer 5

it doesn't work , i need to search pat inside a string value so i think search shud start somethign like \"[a-z][pat], but the problem is tht it doesn't seach the pat inside ("enter pat name")

Answer 6

Try "[:a ]*<pat>[:a ]*".

Answer 7

hi guys thnx for ur reply, "[^"][^"]"it works fine, is there a way tht i can search strings which doesn't hav space after pat , i mean if i hav string like "patname" and "pat name" then i woud like to search "patname" rather than "pat name" ?