Need regular expression to parse address

Question

Can anyone help me convert the following string ("D/6, 3RD FLOOR B- WING HANS CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY DAWOOD BAGH J.P. ROAD CROSS ANDHERI WEST MUMBAI-400058") into the below string with (,) to start with new line using C# and asp .net.

D/6, 3RD FLOOR B- WING, 
HANS CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY,
DAWOOD BAGH,
J.P. ROAD CROSS,
ANDHERI WEST,
MUMBAI-400058.

Answer 1

Mahesh there are no defined rules in your case w.r.t where to place the comma.

In case you want to place text after comma on a new line you can use:

String.Replace(",", "," + Environment.NewLine);

Answer 2

There are no tells as to which character determines where the new line is.

So this is currently not possible.

You would need to have a unique character or pattern that states that a new line is required so that you could then replace using Regex.

The only way you could do it, would be if you had each street, city, postcode etc. etc. then you could create a function that would compare the string and replace new lines in between known streets, areas, cities etc. Although I'm not sure if that is what you're looking for.

Answer 3

A regular expression won't be able to parse such an input semantically. You have to be able to formulate rules about what to modify.

Answer 4

For a generic solution, you would need a dictionary with all the Wings, apartments, colonies, lanes, streets. May be you can compile it with the help of local post office. Then you should parse the string to find the landmarks. Once this is done, you can format it accordingly.

The simple solution would be to have a delimiter set properly when the addresses are collected and later use a simple regex replacement.