<div dir="ltr">I find this page mucho helpful when doing the Java Reg Expressions.<br><br><a href="http://www.fileformat.info/tool/regex.htm">http://www.fileformat.info/tool/regex.htm</a><br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 2:46 PM, Nathan C. Smith <<a href="mailto:nathan.smith@ipmvs.com">nathan.smith@ipmvs.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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Do we have any regex wizrds in our midst?<br>
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I need help creating a regular expression that can find a US patent number in a block of text.<br>
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Elements that should match could look like 7,225,309 or 7225309 and 88,809 or 88809 and D339,456 or D339456. Some numbers also start with PP for plant patent.<br>
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Obviously 7225309 looks like pretty much any number, but I'm using a free from input where any number is likely to be a patent. I'm not sure if I should use one, two, or more regexes or really how to approach the problem. Do I try to match the numbers as numbers or as characters, or do the comma format one way and the non-comma format the other?<br>
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This was my first attempt: \b([D]?[0-9](,?)|D)[0-9]?[0-9]?[0-9](,?)[0-9][0-9][0-9]<br>
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It matches most of my test case, but I need to figure out how to account for shorter variations without commas (use more question marks?) and probably more conditionals '|' ? It also has the drawback of matching 3.14159. It also looks a little long and I suspect there is a better way to do some of it.<br>
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It looks like I would be happy matching about anything that wasn't PI, a social security number, or an IP Address. My the expression engine I am using is in JAVA but is *supposed* to be pcre-compatible.<br>
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Thanks.<br>
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-Nate<br>
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