How do I replace unwanted characters from a string using Reg Exp?

[vvenk]

Hello:

I have a string, "Testing_!@#$%^ &*()". It may have single and double
quotations as well.

I would like to strip all chararcters others than a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and the comma.

I came across the following snippet in the online help but the output does
not change at all:

Function CleanInput(ByRe f strIn As String) As String
'returns a string after stripping out all nonalphanumeric characters
except @, - (a dash), and . (a period).
' Replace invalid characters with empty strings.
Return Regex.Replace(s trIn, "[^\w\.@-]", "")
End Function

So if I pass in a string, "Testing_!@#$%^ &*()", I get the same back.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks.

Venki

[vvenk]

While I was waiting, I was able to figure it out.

with the regex string, "[`~!@#$%^&*()_\-=+\[\]\{\}\|;:'./<>?\b\t ]" I was
able to strip out all unwanted characters except a-z, A-Z, 0-9, comma, double
quote.

Venki

"vvenk" wrote:

Hello:

I have a string, "Testing_!@#$%^ &*()". It may have single and double
quotations as well.

I would like to strip all chararcters others than a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and the comma.

I came across the following snippet in the online help but the output does
not change at all:

Function CleanInput(ByRe f strIn As String) As String
'returns a string after stripping out all nonalphanumeric characters
except @, - (a dash), and . (a period).
' Replace invalid characters with empty strings.
Return Regex.Replace(s trIn, "[^\w\.@-]", "")
End Function

So if I pass in a string, "Testing_!@#$%^ &*()", I get the same back.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks.

Venki

[vvenk]

Hello:

I also wanted to strip out any double quotes. So I changed the regex to

"[`~!@#$%^&*()_\-=+\[\]\{\}\|;:'./<>?\b\t \34]"

since I cannot embed a double quote within a string in VB (or at least I do
not know how to.)

But this does not strip the double quotes. I checked the above with
RegexBuddy and it works with it.

Thanks

venki

"vvenk" wrote:

While I was waiting, I was able to figure it out.

with the regex string, "[`~!@#$%^&*()_\-=+\[\]\{\}\|;:'./<>?\b\t ]" I was
able to strip out all unwanted characters except a-z, A-Z, 0-9, comma, double
quote.

Venki

"vvenk" wrote:

Hello:

I have a string, "Testing_!@#$%^ &*()". It may have single and double
quotations as well.

I would like to strip all chararcters others than a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and the comma.

I came across the following snippet in the online help but the output does
not change at all:

Function CleanInput(ByRe f strIn As String) As String
'returns a string after stripping out all nonalphanumeric characters
except @, - (a dash), and . (a period).
' Replace invalid characters with empty strings.
Return Regex.Replace(s trIn, "[^\w\.@-]", "")
End Function

So if I pass in a string, "Testing_!@#$%^ &*()", I get the same back.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks.

Venki

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

"vvenk" <vv***@discussi ons.microsoft.c omschrieb:

Function CleanInput(ByRe f strIn As String) As String
'returns a string after stripping out all nonalphanumeric
characters
except @, - (a dash), and . (a period).
' Replace invalid characters with empty strings.
Return Regex.Replace(s trIn, "[^\w\.@-]", "")
End Function

In addition to the other replies, pass 'strIn' as 'ByVal'. 'String' is a
reference type.

--
M S Herfried K. Wagner
M V P <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/>
V B <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/dotnet/faqs/>

[vvenk]

Herfriend:

I noticed that too. BTW, this is from the on-line help. Even after changing
it, the function, as it is written in the on-line help, does not work.

venki

"Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]" wrote:

"vvenk" <vv***@discussi ons.microsoft.c omschrieb:

Function CleanInput(ByRe f strIn As String) As String
'returns a string after stripping out all nonalphanumeric
characters
except @, - (a dash), and . (a period).
' Replace invalid characters with empty strings.
Return Regex.Replace(s trIn, "[^\w\.@-]", "")
End Function

In addition to the other replies, pass 'strIn' as 'ByVal'. 'String' is a
reference type.

--
M S Herfried K. Wagner
M V P <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/>
V B <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/dotnet/faqs/>