Working With RegExp

The Regular Expression object provides simple regular expression support.

Properties

Global Property
IgnoreCase Property
Pattern Property

Methods

Execute Method
Replace Method

Test Method

'RegExp

Set regEx = New RegExp   ' Create a regular expression.
   regEx.Pattern = "[a-zA-Z0-9]"   ' Set pattern.
   regEx.IgnoreCase = True   ' Set case insensitivity.
   regEx.Global = True   ' Set global applicability.

'RegExp

lovePoem = "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."

lovePoem = lovePoem & "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height"

lovePoem = lovePoem & "My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight"

lovePoem = lovePoem & "For the ends of Being and ideal Grace."

lovePoem = lovePoem & "I love thee to the level of everydays"

lovePoem = lovePoem & "Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light."

lovePoem = lovePoem & "I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;"

lovePoem = lovePoem & "I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise."

lovePoem = lovePoem & "I love thee with a passion put to use"

lovePoem = lovePoem & "In my old griefs, and with my childhoods faith."

lovePoem = lovePoem & "I love thee with a love I seemed to lose"

lovePoem = lovePoem & "With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,"

lovePoem = lovePoem & "Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,"

lovePoem = lovePoem & "I shall but love thee better after death."

'===============================================================

'Using RegExp — How to count the number of times the word “love” appears in the poem:

'

'To count the number of times a word (or any pattern) appears in a string, you can use QTP with VBScript’s RegExp object, along with the Pattern property and Execute method.

'

'The Pattern property can set or return any regular expression pattern you wish to search for.

'=============================================================

'The Execute method is used to run a search using a regular expression:

'=============================================================

Set re = New RegExp

 re.Global = True

 re.Pattern = "love"

 Set loveMatch = re.Execute(lovePoem)

 MsgBox loveMatch.Count

'==============================================================

'Replace Method

'

'You can also use the Replace method to count the appearances of a word or pattern.

'This method replaces the text found in a search using a regular expression.

'To replace all the occurrences of the word thee with you in the poem you can do the following:

'===============================================================

 Set re = New RegExp

 re.Global = True

 re.Pattern = "thee"

 MsgBox re.Replace(lovePoem,"you")

Function ReplaceTest(patrn, replStr)

  Dim regEx, str1               ' Create variables.

  str1 = "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

  Set regEx = New RegExp            ' Create regular expression.

  regEx.Pattern = patrn            ' Set pattern.

  regEx.IgnoreCase = True            ' Make case insensitive.

  ReplaceTest = regEx.Replace(str1, replStr)   ' Make replacement.

End Function

MsgBox(ReplaceTest("fox", "cat"))      ' Replace 'fox' with 'cat'.

'In addition, the Replace method can replace subexpressions in the pattern. The following call to the function shown in the previous example swaps each pair of words in the original string: