Regex Problem with Whitespaces

Question

User1122355199 posted

Hello everyone and thanks for your help in advance.  I am trying to parse some text extracted from a pdf that looks something like:

Patient:   TESTCASE, THOMAS T            MRN: 1234567

The word "Patient is preceded by one or more spaces and there are one or more spaces following "Patient:" and an indeterminable number of spaces following "Thomas T" and preceding "MRN".  I've tried:

RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace

and:

string pattern = "Patient:" & "([\s+]+)"

but neither work.  Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

User475983607 posted

Not a regex solution but it might work.

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string line = @"   Patient: TESTCASE, THOMAS T            MRN: 1234567 ";

            string[] fields = { "Patient", "MRN" };

            foreach(string field in fields)
            {
                int idx = line.IndexOf(field);
                line = line.Insert(idx, "|");
            }

            string[] items = line.Trim().Split(new char[] { '|' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Select(p => p.Trim()).ToArray();

            string json = "[{";
            for(int i = 0; i < items.Count(); i++)
            {
                string[] nameValue = items[i].Split(new char[] { ':' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Select(p => p.Trim()).ToArray();
                json += $"\"{nameValue[0]}\" : \"{nameValue[1]}\"{(i== items.Count()-1 ? "}]" : ", ")}";
            }

            //Console.WriteLine(json);

            Record[] records = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Record[]>(json);

            Console.WriteLine("Patient\t\t\tMRN");
            foreach (var r in records)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("{0}\t{1}", r.Patient, r.MRN);
            }

        }

        public class Record
        {
            public string Patient { get; set; }
            public string MRN { get; set; }
        }
    }

Answer 2

User303363814 posted

I wish I had a dollar for every time I saw the word 'Regex' followed by the word 'Problem' ...

What if you don't use a Regex?

var input = "Patient:   TESTCASE, THOMAS T            MRN: 1234567";
var fields = input.Split(new []{"Patient:", "MRN:"}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)
                  .Select(s => s.Trim());

Use the keywords as separators to string.split, trim the leading and trailing spaces.

Answer 3

User1122355199 posted

Thanks for the response.  Would you please explain the portion of the code:

.Select(s => s.Trim());

I don't work with Linq (probably need to learn).  Thanks again.

Answer 4

User36583972 posted

HI kmcnet,

Thanks for the response.  Would you please explain the portion of the code:

.Select(s => s.Trim());

I don't work with Linq (probably need to learn).  Thanks again.

You can refer the following description.

    // Summary:
        //     Removes all leading and trailing white-space characters from the current System.String
        //     object.
        //
        // Returns:
        //     The string that remains after all white-space characters are removed from the
        //     start and end of the current string. If no characters can be trimmed from the
        //     current instance, the method returns the current instance unchanged.
        public String Trim();

You can refer the following links for getting more detailed about Lambda Expressions.

Lambda Expressions (C# Programming Guide):
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/statements-expressions-operators/lambda-expressions

How to select some specific column in Lambda Expression LINQ in Entity framework
https://forums.asp.net/t/2011108.aspx?How+to+select+some+specific+column+in+Lambda+Expression+LINQ+in+Entity+framework+

Best Regards,

Yong Lu

Answer 5

User1122355199 posted

Thanks to everyone for the help.