Regex making my eyes bleed as usual

[JLogan3o13]

It is no secret I suck hard when it comes to regex. Usually I can get by with String functions just fine, but I am struggling at the moment. Hoping someone out there can provide some regex guidance for a simple solution.

I am extracting all the text from a PDF file for manipulation. The text, when extracted, comes out like this:

Agency Delegated Admin Request BDC Name: John Doe
Request Date: 12/02/2014 Agency Name: FUG Insurance Inc. dba Claribell &
Taylor Ins. Agency Number: 123456
Agency State: TN Administrator Name: Lu Ann Smith Administrator Phone: 900-111-2222 Administrator Extension: 111 Administrator Email: myemail@ins.com Back-up Administrator Jim Jones

I am basically looking to pull each field (BDC Name, Request Date, Agency Name, etc.) but as it the formatting it off I am not finding an easy way of capturing this. And the length of the field is not going to be consistent, so String functions with StringLen are getting me nowhere. Is there a simple method of pulling the fields? I thought about pulling everything between the colons, and then just removing the excess - so I would get this:

: John Doe Request Date
: 12/02/2014 Agency Name
: FUG Insurance Inc. dba Claribell & Taylor Ins. Agency Number
: 123456 Agency State
: TN Administrator Name
: Lu Ann Smith Administrator Phone
: 900-111-2222 Administrator Extension
: 111 Administrator Email
: myemail@ins.com Back-up Administrator Jim Jones

..and then would have to remove the next field's name from the string. But perhaps there is a better way that I am missing.

[Melba23]

JLogan3o13,

Are the various heading texts (i.e the words before the colon but after the previous data) always the same?

M23

[JLogan3o13]

Yes, they are.

[Melba23]

JLogan3o13,

Then this seems to work:

$sString = "Agency Delegated Admin Request BDC Name: John Doe" & @CRLF & _
    "Request Date: 12/02/2014 Agency Name: FUG Insurance Inc. dba Claribell &" & @CRLF & _
    "Taylor Ins. Agency Number: 123456" & @CRLF & _
    "Agency State: TN Administrator Name: Lu Ann Smith Administrator Phone: 900-111-2222 Administrator Extension: 111 Administrator Email: myemail@ins.com Back-up Administrator: Jim Jones"

; Remove all @CRLF and then replace the headers with @CRLF
$sExtract = StringRegExpReplace(StringReplace($sString, @CRLF, " "), "Agency Delegated Admin Request BDC Name: |Request Date: |Agency Name: |Agency Number: |Agency State: |Administrator Name: |Administrator Phone: |Administrator Extension: |Administrator Email: |Back-up Administrator: ", @CRLF)

ConsoleWrite($sExtract & @CRLF

No doubt a real guru will give you a better solution, but that should get you going.

M23

[SmOke_N]

(.+?)(?::s*|z)

[JLogan3o13]

That is awesome, thanks Melba

[JLogan3o13]

Thanks, Smoke_N, I will try that out as well

[SmOke_N]

Sorry, the vertical spaces were screwing it up, try this:  

"(?s)(?:(.+?)\:\s*|\z)" 

Edit:

You are going to have to replace the vertical spaces regardless to get a proper layout.

Local $aPatt = "(?s)(?:(.+?)\:\s*|\z)"
Local $aRegex = StringRegExp(StringRegExpReplace(ClipGet(), "\v+", " "), $aPatt, 3)

Edited December 11, 2014 by SmOke_N

[JLogan3o13]

Thanks. You are right, it will take some massaging, but I can definitely work with it.

[mikell]

#Include <Array.au3>

Local $str = "Agency Delegated Admin Request BDC Name: John Doe" & @CRLF & _
    "Request Date: 12/02/2014 Agency Name: FUG Insurance Inc. dba Claribell &" & @CRLF & _
    "Taylor Ins. Agency Number: 123456" & @CRLF & _
    "Agency State: TN Administrator Name: Lu Ann Smith Administrator Phone: 900-111-2222 Administrator Extension: 111 Administrator Email: myemail@ins.com Back-up Administrator: Jim Jones"

Local $res[10][2], $txt = $str  ;FileRead("1.txt")
Local $items[11] = ["Agency Delegated Admin Request BDC Name", "Request Date", "Agency Name", "Agency Number", "Agency State", "Administrator Name", "Administrator Phone", "Administrator Extension", "Administrator Email", "Back-up Administrator", "\z"]
For $i = 0 to 9
     $res[$i][0] = $items[$i]
     $res[$i][1] = StringRegExpReplace($txt, '(?s).*' & $items[$i] & ':\s*([^\r\n]+)\R?([^\r\n]+)?\s*' & $items[$i+1] & '.*', "$1$2")
Next

 _ArrayDisplay($res)

Edit

This one will work even in case of missing info(s)

Edited December 11, 2014 by mikell

[mikell]

BTW this can be done with String* funcs and without regex 

#Include <Array.au3>

Local $str = "Agency Delegated Admin Request BDC Name: John Doe" & @CRLF & _
    "Request Date: 12/02/2014 Agency Name: FUG Insurance Inc. dba Claribell &" & @CRLF & _
    "Taylor Ins. Agency Number: 123456" & @CRLF & _
    "Agency State: TN Administrator Name: Lu Ann Smith Administrator Phone: 900-111-2222 Administrator Extension: 111 Administrator Email: myemail@ins.com Back-up Administrator: Jim Jones"

Local $res[10][2], $txt = $str  ;FileRead("1.txt")
Local $items[10] = ["Agency Delegated Admin Request BDC Name", "Request Date", "Agency Name", "Agency Number", "Agency State", "Administrator Name", "Administrator Phone", "Administrator Extension", "Administrator Email", "Back-up Administrator"]

$txt = StringReplace($txt, @crlf, " ")
For $i = 1 to 9
   $txt = StringReplace($txt, $items[$i], @crlf & $items[$i])
Next
Msgbox(0,"", $txt)
$lines = StringSplit($txt, @crlf, 1)
 _ArrayDisplay($lines)
For $i = 1 to $lines[0]
    $tmp = StringSplit($lines[$i], ": ", 1) 
    $res[$i-1][0] = $tmp[1]
    $res[$i-1][1] = $tmp[2]
Next
 _ArrayDisplay($res)

[JLogan3o13]

Yes, i did much the same, mikell, stringsplit each line and then captured my content from there. But the PDFs are large and it was getting unwieldy.

Thanks, all, for the direction. I believe I've found what will work best.

[Bert]

Have you looked at the RegEx tool script in the help file? That thing makes using RegEx much easier.

[jguinch]

Another way :

#Include <Array.au3>

Local $str = "Agency Delegated Admin Request BDC Name: John Doe" & @CRLF & _
    "Request Date: 12/02/2014 Agency Name: FUG Insurance Inc. dba Claribell &" & @CRLF & _
    "Taylor Ins. Agency Number: 123456" & @CRLF & _
    "Agency State: TN Administrator Name: Lu Ann Smith Administrator Phone: 900-111-2222 Administrator Extension: 111 Administrator Email: myemail@ins.com Back-up Administrator: Jim Jones"

Local $ret = StringRegExp(StringRegExpReplace($str, "\R", " "), "(?s)(Agency Delegated Admin Request BDC Name|Request Date|Agency Name|Agency Number|Agency State|Administrator Name|Administrator Phone|Administrator Extension|Administrator Email|Back-up Administrator): (.+?)\h*(?=(?1)|$)", 3)
_ArrayDisplay($ret)


; $ret2D = _Array1DTo2D($ret, 2) ; http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/topic/165600-array1dto2d/
; _ArrayDisplay($ret2D)



Local $aResult[ UBound($ret) / 2 ][2]
Local $iIndex = 0
For $i = 0 To UBound($ret) - 1 Step 2
    $aResult[$i / 2][0] = $ret[$i]

    $aResult[$i / 2][1] = $ret[$i + 1]
Next
_ArrayDisplay($aResult)

Edited December 12, 2014 by jguinch