I need a little help with regular expressions. I need to locate a string:
{"users":[
and replace it with
{"name": "blaaaa", "users":[
In a complex json file.
I am completely ignorant about regexes.
Thank you
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4any attempts?.. – Avinash Raj Sep 16 '16 at 13:40
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4If you want to handle actual JSON cases - don't do it with regexes, use a parser. If you don't - there is nothing regexy about this case, simply replace `'"users"'` with `'"name": "blaaaa", "users"'`. – ndnenkov Sep 16 '16 at 13:44
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Using regex for JSON, or any other format that requires a parser, is not a good idea. Parse it using your favorite parser, add name attribute, and serialize the results back to JSON.
If you would like to continue with a regex exercise, however, here is how you can do it: one simple approach is to search for the { preceding "users", and then replace it with {"name":"blaaaa", text. The "followed by" concept is expressed with the look-ahead construct (?=<text>):
{(?="users":\[)
Note the escape symbol \ in front of [, which is necessary because [ is part of regex syntax.
Sergey Kalinichenko
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@ndn C'mon, you know it never happens! I mean, what normal string would have JSON fragments in it, right??? ;-) ;-) ;-) – Sergey Kalinichenko Sep 16 '16 at 13:47
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Thank for quick response. I got n error saying: Illegal repetition: {(?="users":\[) – Srdjan Nikitovic Sep 16 '16 at 13:55
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1@SrdjanNikitovic What program gave you the error? Did you forget to include the slash? – Sergey Kalinichenko Sep 16 '16 at 13:59
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You'll be surprised. I've seen an XML API that consisted of a single string containing JSON. Maybe if they decide to support JSON in the future as well... xd xd xd – ndnenkov Sep 16 '16 at 14:05
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Pentahoo Spoon, I am doing an ETL job. I put the Search term to be "{(?="users":\[)" – Srdjan Nikitovic Sep 16 '16 at 15:42
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@SrdjanNikitovic You need a backslash in front of the square bracket. – Sergey Kalinichenko Sep 16 '16 at 15:48
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Ah yes, I have it. I do not know when I copy it here itdisaperas. – Srdjan Nikitovic Sep 16 '16 at 15:49
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@SrdjanNikitovic I am not familiar with Pentahoo Spoon. Check their regex documentation, and try simpler things, e.g. looking for `users` with no quotes, then `"users"` with quotes, then for `{`, and so on. At some point you will detect what symbol is causing the problem, which will let you address the issue. If regex does not work, a plain text replacement is sufficient in this situation, too: searching and replacing what you have in the question should do the trick. – Sergey Kalinichenko Sep 16 '16 at 15:59
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