Complex Regular Expression about ":"

Question

some_language_built-in_function(String,'^(?:([^,]*)\,?){1}',1)

I am new to regular expression. I know this pattern is to extract some specfic context. Can anyone elaborate this? I have few questions:
1) the first "^"
2) "?"
3) ":"
4) "\" Is this "\" to escape ","? If so, why? I can't related these with normal regular expression.

Here is the first line of csv file (to be extract).

aardsda01,2004,1,SFN,NL,11,11,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,11

[a-zA-Z][\w\d]*(?=,?) should do it if it is the black portion you want to extract. — Redu, Apr 07 '16 at 05:12

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 07 '16 at 04:49

^: start of line
(?:....): non-capturing group (as opposed to (....), capturing group)
\,: equivalent to , (\ is indeed unneccesary)

Thus: start of line (^), then exactly one ((?:....){1}) of: any number of non-commas ([^,]*) captured in the first group ((....)), and an optional comma (,?).

Complex Regular Expression about ":"

1 Answers1