How to use regex to extract nested patterns

Question

Hi I'm struggling with some regex

I've got a string like this:

a:b||c:{d:e||f:g}||h:i

basically name value pairings. I want to be able to parse out the pairings so I get:

a:b
c:{d:e||f:g}
h:i

then I can further parse the pairings contained in { } if required It is the nesting that is making me scratch my head. Any regex experts out there that can give me a hand?

thanks,

Rob

Answer 1

Arbitrarily nested patterns is irregular. So, no, you can't just use regex to parse this.

Answer 2

Is there any limit on the depth of nesting in your strings ? If not your language is not regular and regular expressions are the wrong tool -- as you are discovering already.