What does the regular expression "\(([^)]*)\)" do?

Question

What does this regular expression do? -

Regex.Match(file.ToString(), @"\(([^)]*)\)").Groups[1].Value.ToString();

( = starting paranthesis

) = ending paranthesis

[^)]* = all characters which are not ending paranthesis

What is the need for another () wrapping around the square brackets?

You should take a look to [regex101](https://regex101.com/) which provides tests and explanation. — Delgan, Jun 25 '15 at 07:17
@Delgan: Although sadly not for .Net's flavor of regex. But the flavors it has are quite similar (and the above is the same in several flavors). — T.J. Crowder, Jun 25 '15 at 07:46

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 25 '15 at 07:13

1

What is the need for another () wrapping around the square brackets?

That defines a capture group for the zero or more characters matched by [^)]*, so that you can get only the text that matched that part, without the ( and ) literal characters around it. E.g., given the input (foo), the overall match is (foo) but the capture group contains foo.

answered Jun 25 '15 at 07:13

T.J. Crowder

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In particular, the posted code uses `Groups[1]` to refer back to this particular capture group. – tripleee Jun 25 '15 at 07:57

What does the regular expression "\(([^)]*)\)" do?

1 Answers1