How to replace [Word] with Word using Regex.Replace and should replace only whole words

Question

I am currently working on a translation project. One of the problems that I have encountered is when I try to replace special character characters.

For example:

[Animal] can be furry. Dog is an [Animal]. 

I need to replace [Animal] with Animal . Please note that I only need to replace the entire word. Thus, the result should be as follows:

 Animal can be furry. Dog is an Animal. 

In addition, as I said, it should be a whole word. Therefore, if I have:

[Animal][Animal][Animal] can be furry. - the result should be

[Animal][Animal][Animal] can be furry. - nothing happened because [Animal] does not match [Animal][Animal][Animal]

Example:

 string originalText1 = "[Animal] can be furry"; string badText ="[Animal]"; string goodText = "Animal"; Regex.Replace(originalText1, Regex.Escape(badText), Regex.Escape(goodText)); 

Everything is good. But, as I said, I need the whole word to be replaced. And with the code above, " [Animal]can be furry " will be replaced with " Animalcan be furry ", which is no no.

so i also tried:

 Regex.Unescape( Regex.Replace( Regex.Escape(originalText1), String.Format(@"\b{0}\b", Regex.Escape(badText)), Regex.Escape(goodText))) 

However, this will not work. And now I'm lost. Please, help.

I would also like to mention that there was the FIRST similar post, but this question did not require replacing the whole word. I scanned the network for almost 3 hours to no avail. Your help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

I have not tested it, but I would try this:

 Regex.Replace(orginalText, @"\b\[Animal\]\b", "Animal"); 

This will only match [Animal] at word boundaries (\ b)

Answer 2

This works for me. Try it and let me know if this is what you are looking for.

 string originalText1 = "[Animal] can be furry"; string badText = @"(?:(?<=^|\s)(?=\S)|(?<=\S|^)(?=\s))" + Regex.Escape("[Animal]") + @"(?:(?<=\S)(?=\s|$)|(?<=\s)(?=\S|$))"; string goodText = "Animal"; string newString = Regex.Replace(originalText1, badText, goodText); Console.WriteLine(newString); //"Animal can be furry" originalText1 = "[Animal]can be furry"; newString = Regex.Replace(originalText1, badText, goodText); Console.WriteLine(newString); //"[Animal]can be furry" 

Found here .

Answer 3

I think the easiest way here is to use the look and feel to make sure the text in square brackets is “real”. I'm not sure about your specific requirements, but it looks like you are looking for:

• Search string enclosed in square brackets (for example, [Animal] )
• It preceded the beginning of a line, a space, or, possibly, some punctuation.
• The sequence of the end of a line or a space, or possibly some punctuation (for example, followed by a period in Dog is an [Animal].

The first is easy: \[Animal\] .

For the second, you can use the look to match the previous character:
(?<=(^|\s)) and for the last search: (?=($|\s|\.))

This means that the entire regex will be:

 var pattern = @"(?<=^|\s)\[Animal\](?=$|\s|\.)"; var output = Regex.Replace(input, pattern, "Animal"); 

You may need to add extra punctuation to the wait / lag as needed.

Examples in your question:

 Input: "[Animal] can be furry." Output: "Animal can be furry." Input: "Dog is an [Animal]." Output: "Dog is an Animal." Input: "[Animal][Animal][Animal] can be furry." Output: "[Animal][Animal][Animal] can be furry." Input: "[Animal]can be furry" Output: "[Animal]can be furry" 

Answer 4

For me this works:

 string s = @"[Animal][Animal][Animal] can be furry. - nothing happened as [Animal] is not the same as [Animal][Animal][Animal] [Animal] can be furry. [Animal] can [Animal] be furry my [Animal] is furry"; string mask = "(^|\\s)\\[Animal\\](\\s|$)"; string rep = "$1Animal$2"; string s2 = ""; s2 = Regex.Replace(mask, rep); /* s2 = "[Animal][Animal][Animal] can be furry. - nothing happened as Animal is not the same as [Animal][Animal][Animal] Animal can be furry. Animal can Animal be furry my Animal is furry" */ 

You can also add "special characters" to the mask:

 string mask = "(^|\\s|'|\")\\[Animal\\](\\s|$|,|\\?|\\.|!|'|\")";