Group Class

Definition

Namespace:

System.Text.RegularExpressions

Assembly:

System.Text.RegularExpressions.dll

Source:

Group.cs

Represents the results from a single capturing group.

public ref class Group : System::Text::RegularExpressions::Capture

public class Group : System.Text.RegularExpressions.Capture

type Group = class
    inherit Capture

Public Class Group
Inherits Capture

Inheritance

Object

Capture

Group

Derived

System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match

Remarks

A capturing group can capture zero, one, or more strings in a single match because of quantifiers. (For more information, see Quantifiers.) All the substrings matched by a single capturing group are available from the Group.Captures property. Information about the last substring captured can be accessed directly from the Value and Index properties. (That is, the Group instance is equivalent to the last item of the collection returned by the Captures property, which reflects the last capture made by the capturing group.)

An example helps to clarify this relationship between a Group object and the System.Text.RegularExpressions.CaptureCollection that is returned by the Captures property. The regular expression pattern (\b(\w+?)[,:;]?\s?)+[?.!] matches entire sentences. The regular expression is defined as shown in the following table.

Pattern	Description
\b	Begin the match at a word boundary.
(\w+?)	Match one or more word characters, but as few characters as possible. This is the second (inner) capturing group. (The first capturing group includes the \b language element.)
[,:;]?	Match zero or one occurrence of a comma, colon, or semicolon.
\s?	Match zero or one occurrence of a white-space character.
(\b(\w+?)[,:;]?\s?)+	Match the pattern consisting of a word boundary, one or more word characters, a punctuation symbol, and a white-space character one or more times. This is the first capturing group.
[?.!]	Match any occurrence of a period, question mark, or exclamation point.

In this regular expression pattern, the subpattern (\w+?) is designed to match multiple words within a sentence. However, the value of the Group object represents only the last match that (\w+?) captures, whereas the Captures property returns a CaptureCollection that represents all captured text. As the output shows, the CaptureCollection for the second capturing group contains four objects. The last of these corresponds to the Group object.

using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

public class Example
{
   public static void Main()
   {
      string pattern = @"(\b(\w+?)[,:;]?\s?)+[?.!]";
      string input = "This is one sentence. This is a second sentence.";

      Match match = Regex.Match(input, pattern);
      Console.WriteLine("Match: " + match.Value);
      int groupCtr = 0;
      foreach (Group group in match.Groups)
      {
         groupCtr++;
         Console.WriteLine("   Group {0}: '{1}'", groupCtr, group.Value);
         int captureCtr = 0;
         foreach (Capture capture in group.Captures)
         {
            captureCtr++;
            Console.WriteLine("      Capture {0}: '{1}'", captureCtr, capture.Value);
         }
      }   
   }
}
// The example displays the following output:
//       Match: This is one sentence.
//          Group 1: 'This is one sentence.'
//             Capture 1: 'This is one sentence.'
//          Group 2: 'sentence'
//             Capture 1: 'This '
//             Capture 2: 'is '
//             Capture 3: 'one '
//             Capture 4: 'sentence'
//          Group 3: 'sentence'
//             Capture 1: 'This'
//             Capture 2: 'is'
//             Capture 3: 'one'
//             Capture 4: 'sentence'

Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions

Module Example
   Public Sub Main()
      Dim pattern As String = "(\b(\w+?)[,:;]?\s?)+[?.!]"
      Dim input As String = "This is one sentence. This is a second sentence."

      Dim match As Match = Regex.Match(input, pattern)
      Console.WriteLine("Match: " + match.Value)
      Dim groupCtr As Integer = 0
      For Each group As Group In match.Groups
         groupCtr += 1
         Console.WriteLine("   Group {0}: '{1}'", groupCtr, group.Value)
         Dim captureCtr As Integer = 0
         For Each capture As Capture In group.Captures
            captureCtr += 1
            Console.WriteLine("      Capture {0}: '{1}'", captureCtr, capture.Value)
         Next
      Next   
   End Sub
End Module
' The example displays the following output:
'       Match: This is one sentence.
'          Group 1: 'This is one sentence.'
'             Capture 1: 'This is one sentence.'
'          Group 2: 'sentence'
'             Capture 1: 'This '
'             Capture 2: 'is '
'             Capture 3: 'one '
'             Capture 4: 'sentence'
'          Group 3: 'sentence'
'             Capture 1: 'This'
'             Capture 2: 'is'
'             Capture 3: 'one'
'             Capture 4: 'sentence'

Properties

Captures	Gets a collection of all the captures matched by the capturing group, in innermost-leftmost-first order (or innermost-rightmost-first order if the regular expression is modified with the RightToLeft option). The collection may have zero or more items.
Index	The position in the original string where the first character of the captured substring is found. (Inherited from Capture)
Length	Gets the length of the captured substring. (Inherited from Capture)
Name	Returns the name of the capturing group represented by the current instance.
Success	Gets a value indicating whether the match is successful.
Value	Gets the captured substring from the input string. (Inherited from Capture)
ValueSpan	Gets the captured span from the input string. (Inherited from Capture)

Methods

Equals(Object)	Determines whether the specified object is equal to the current object. (Inherited from Object)
GetHashCode()	Serves as the default hash function. (Inherited from Object)
GetType()	Gets the Type of the current instance. (Inherited from Object)
MemberwiseClone()	Creates a shallow copy of the current Object. (Inherited from Object)
Synchronized(Group)	Returns a Group object equivalent to the one supplied that is safe to share between multiple threads.
ToString()	Retrieves the captured substring from the input string by calling the Value property. (Inherited from Capture)