Explain C# Grouping Constructs in regular expression

Csharp Programming Server Side Programming

There are various categories of characters, operators, and constructs that lets you to define regular expressions.

One of them is Grouping Constructs. Grouping constructs describe sub-expressions of a regular expression and capture substrings of an input string. The following table lists the grouping constructs.

Grouping construct	Description	Pattern	Matches
( subexpression )	Captures the matched subexpression and assigns it a zero-based ordinal number.	(\w)\1	"ee" in "deep"
(?< name >subexpression)	Captures the matched subexpression into a named group.	(?< double>\w)\k< double>	"ee" in "deep"
(?< name1 -name2 >subexpression)	Defines a balancing group definition.	(((?'Open'$)[^\($])+((?'Close-Open'\))[^])+)*(?(Open)(?!))$	"((1-3)(3-1))" in "3+2^((1-3)(3-1))"
(?: subexpression)	Defines a noncapturing group.	Write(?:Line)?	"WriteLine" in "Console.WriteLine()"
(?imnsx-imnsx:subexpression)	Applies or disables the specified options within subexpression	A\d{2}(?i:\w+)\b	"A12xl", "A12XL" in "A12xl A12XL a12xl"
(?= subexpression)	Zero-width positive lookahead assertion.	\w+(?=\.)	"is", "ran", and "out" in "He is. The dog ran. The sun is out."
(?! subexpression)	Zero-width negative lookahead assertion.	\b(?!un)\w+\b	"sure", "used" in "unsure sure unity used"
(?< =subexpression)	Zero-width positive lookbehind assertion.	(?< =19)\d{2}\b	"51", "03" in "1851 1999 1950 1905 2003"
(?< ! subexpression)	Zero-width negative lookbehind assertion.	(?< !19)\d{2}\b	"ends", "ender" in "end sends endure lender"
(?> subexpression)	Nonbacktracking (or "greedy") subexpression.	[13579](?>A+B+)	"1ABB", "3ABB", and "5AB" in "1ABB 3ABBC 5AB 5AC"

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Updated on: 30-Jul-2019

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