Regular expression for dotted string with exception

Question

I'm not sure that is it possible to do in one regex, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

I created the expression:

/(?<variable>\w+)((\.(?<method>\w+)\((?<parameter>[^{}%]*)\))|(\.(?<subvariable>\w+)))?/i

which helps me to "convert" dotted strings to arrays or call to methods:

core.settings => $core['settings'] 
core.set(param1, param2) => $core->set('param1', 'param2')

It works very well. But I have no idea how to build a several level expression which will work like this:

group <variable> = core  
group <subvariable> = settings

group <variable> = core
group <method> = get
group <parameter> = param

group <variable> = core
group <subvariable> = settings.time

group <variable> = core
group <subvariable> = settings.time
group <method> = set
group <parameter> = param

Any ideas? And whether it is generally possible?

It would be super helpful if you could write out the expected output for examples 1, 2, and 3. — MonkeyZeus, Mar 15 '21 at 16:28
I know you asked for it to be purely in regex, but would a PHP function do? Also what are you using to run the regex? Also could it be something like `core.settings.time.set(param).format('Y-m-d')` to account for? — hppycoder, Mar 15 '21 at 17:05

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 15 '21 at 17:59

You can use

^(?<variable>\w+)(?:\.(?<subvariable>\w+(?:\.\w+)*))??(?:\.(?<method>\w+)\((?<parameter>[^{}%]*)\))?$

Details:

^ - start of string
(?<variable>\w+) - Group "variable": one or more word chars
(?:\.(?<subvariable>\w+(?:\.\w+)*))?? - zero or one occurrence of . and then Group "subvariable" matching one or more word chars followed with zero or more occurrences of a . and one or more word chars
(?:\.(?<method>\w+)$(?<parameter>[^{}%]*)$)? - an optional sequence of
- \. - a dot
- (?<method>\w+) - Group "method": one or more word chars
- $ - a ( char
- (?<parameter>[^{}%]*) - Group "parameter": zero or more chars other than {, }, %
- $ - a ) char
$ - end of string.

1 Answers1