Regular expression to allow negative and positive numbers?

Question

Say I have a string that looks like As3H22Br-84Si335Nm+21

The following code will separate the numbers and letters from the string and spit them into 2 separate string arrays.

var numRegx = new Regex(@"\d+");

            var numbers = numRegx.Matches(input).Cast<Match>().Select(m => m.Value).ToArray();

            var wordRegx = new Regex(@"[a-zA-Z]+");
            var words = wordRegx.Matches(input).Cast<Match>().Select(m => m.Value).ToArray();

Right now, it's only accepting just positive numbers. How do I modify the regex(@"\d+") also check for negative numbers?

Answer 1

Hello ChemCat,

Try this:

-?\d|[a-zA-Z]

Answer 2

Actually, that doesn't work.  However, after playing around a bit, I found the answer.

\-*\d+

Now I'm embarrassed.  It's so simple.

Answer 3

Hello ChemCat,

But it can't take like that input: As3H22Br-84Si335Nm-21

Answer 4

But it did.  My app is working perfectly with \-*\d+ while it throws an error  with -?\d|[a-zA-Z].  Don't ask me how or why.