Parsing string to array using Regex in c#

Question

im currently making an c# application that receives a string from an serialport, and i need to parse this data so i can do stuff with it.

The strings that are send through the SerialPort are formatted like this:

*NTF,CTRL,SQL,OPEN,+,-66*NTF,CTRL,DBUSY,ON,+,-63*NTF,CTRL,DBUSY,OFF*NTF,CTRL,SQL,CLOSE*

now im wondering how i can split this string into segments on the * symbol, i have made a couple attempts at this myself but couldnt figure it out.

The attempts i made are:

String[] tmp = data.ToString().Split('*');
foreach(String word in tmp)
{
    if (word.Contains(",80") || word.Contains(",81"))
    {
        COM_PORT_INFO_BOX.Text += word + "\r\n";
    }
}

which gave me:

NTF,CTRL,SQL,OPEN,+,-66
NTF,CT RL,DBUSY
,ON,+,-6
3
NTF,CT
RL,DBUSY
,OFF NTF,CT
RL,SQL,C
LOSE

i have also tried:

var regex = new Regex('*'+".+"+'*');
var matches = regex.Matches(data);

But this gave me an error.

What i want to achieve:

The formatted string to look like this:

NTF,CTRL,SQL,OPEN,+,-66
NTF,CTRL,DBUSY,ON,+,-63
NTF,CTRL,DBUSY,OFF
NTF,CTRL,SQL,CLOSE

EDIT:

I have solved the problem by having this piece of code:

SerialPort sp = (SerialPort)sender;
data += sp.ReadExisting().ToString();
string[] tmp = data.Split(new char[] {'\u0002','\u0003'}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
foreach (string line in tmp)
{
    if (line.Contains(",80") || line.Contains(",81") || line.Contains(",RXVCALL"))
    {
        COM_PORT_INFO_BOX.Text += line.Substring(1) + "\r\n";
        data = "";
    }
}          

Answer 1

I know you said "preferrably with regex" but this is cleaner IMHO with String.Split:

string s = "*blablablab,blablabla,blablabla,blablabla*blablabla,blabalbal,blablabla*";
string[] results = s.Split(new [] {'*'}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

results:

String[] (2 items)
----------------------------
blablablab,blablabla,blablabla,blablabla 
blablabla,blabalbal,blablabla 

One thing to remember with String.Split is that is your string begins or ends with a delimiter you'll get empty entries at the beginning and end, respectively, of the resulting array. Adding the StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries parameter removes those empty entries so you are just left with the two stings between each pair of asterisks.

Answer 2

This works for me on regexr.com

The Problem with your regex was, that the ending "*" needs to be used as the ending of the first and the beginning of the second entry. But since it's already used for the first, it's ignored in the second one.

Thats why I used the "\2" backreference

\2(.+?)(\*)

\2 -> backreference to the second group (\*)
(.+?) -> every character until a "*" is found
(\*) -> The character thats ending a single Entry

Answer 3

try this one

([^\*](\.*)[^\*])*

it worked on http://regexstorm.net/tester

[^\*] = match any character which is not *
(\.*) = match any character

so the regex explanation is 
at first match any character that is not *, then match any character that does not ends with *

i think logically true and i tried it and it matched

hope it will help you