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<p><a href="Default.asp">ASP Kitchen</a>: <a href="ASPWatchArticles.asp">ASPWatch.com
articles</a>: VBScript Regular Expressions</p>
<h1>VBScript Regular Expressions</h1>
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>From a programming perspective, one of the biggest annoyances I have faced with
VBScript is the lack of decent string handling functions. Sure, with a bit of imagination,
functions such as InStr, Left and Mid can be combined to help with the job at hand. But
for anyone used to the Perl programming language, VBScript can appear to be extremely
inflexible.</p>
<h2>VBScript Regular Expressions</h2>
<p>While still being someway off the effectiveness of Perl, version 5 of VBScript now has
much improved text handling functions, through it's support for Regular Expressions. For
anyone who hasn’t encountered the term, Regular Expressions have been an essential
part of that nasty operating system known as Unix for many years (and where considered so
useful that they were incorporated into Perl). They can be cryptic and difficult to learn,
but they allow sophisticated pattern matching in strings.</p>
<p>Regular Expressions are quite involved (it is possible to buy whole books devoted to
their use!), and the purpose of this article is simply to draw your attention to the
potential of using them within VBScript.</p>
<p>If you want to know more, then try some of the references at the bottom of the article.</p>
<p>Using the VBScript RegEx object</p>
<p>Support for Regular Expressions has been included in VBScript by the inclusion of the
RegExp object in VBScript version 5. This is the version of the VBScript scripting engine
released with Internet Explorer 5. If you don’t have IE5 on your server, but want to
upgrade the scripting engine, then download the new scripting engine from <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/scripting">www.microsoft.com/scripting</a>.</p>
<p>If you don’t know which version of the scripting engine you are using, then try
using the following small script:</p>
<p><font color="#808080"><%<br>
Response.Write "You are using "<br>
Response.Write ScriptEngine<br>
Response.Write " version " & ScriptEngineMajorVersion & "."
& ScriptEngineMinorVersion<br>
%></font></p>
<p>This should display a message such as the one below:</p>
<p align="center"><img border="0" src="images/bb-vbscript-version.gif" alt="Identification of the VBScript scripting engine version" WIDTH="308" HEIGHT="177"></p>
<h2>Using the RegExp object</h2>
<p>Once you have determined that your web server is running the correct version of
VBScript, the following lines of code will demonstrate the use of the RegExp object.</p>
<p>The first line of code will create a new string that will be searched for the existence
of a sub-string:</p>
<p><font color="#808080">StringToSearch = "<a href="http://www.foo.com">http://www.foo.com</a>"</font></p>
<p>The RegExp object can then be created:</p>
<p><font color="#808080">Set RegularExpressionObject = New RegExp</font></p>
<p>This object has three properties: Pattern, IgnoreCase and Global. Pattern specifies the
Regular Expression that should be searched for. IgnoreCase should be True or False
depending on whether the search should be case sensitive (the default is true). Finally,
the Global property should be set to True if the search should match all occurrences of
the pattern, or False if just the first occurrence should be matched:</p>
<p><font color="#808080">With RegularExpressionObject<br>
.Pattern = ".com"<br>
.IgnoreCase = True<br>
.Global = True<br>
End With</font><br>
</p>
<p>Once the RegExp object’s properties have been set, it is time to test the Regular
Expression. This is done using something like the line below. This uses the Test method of
the RegExp object to see if the Regular Expression is found in the StringToSearch string.</p>
<p><font color="#808080">expressionmatch = RegularExpressionObject.Test(StringToSearch)</font></p>
<p>The Test method will return True if the Regular Expression was found, and False if it
was not found.</p>
<p><font color="#808080">If expressionmatch Then<br>
Response.Write RegularExpressionObject.Pattern & " was found in " &
StringToSearch<br>
Else<br>
Response.Write RegularExpressionObject.Pattern & " was not found in " &
StringToSearch<br>
End If</font></p>
<p>Finally, the RegExp object is destroyed since it is no longer required.</p>
<p><font color="#808080">Set RegularExpressionObject = nothing</font></p>
<h2>More RegExp object methods</h2>
<p>As well as the Test method, the VBScript RegExp object has two further methods: Execute
and Replace.</p>
<h3>The RegExp Execute method</h3>
<p>The RegExp Execute method is a more sophisticated version of the Test method. As well
as seeing if the Regular Expression is found within a string, it will also return the
number of matches made within that string, and at which position in the string the
match(es) were made. An example of its use is below:</p>
<p><font color="#808080"><%<br>
StringToSearch = "The website ASPWatch.com contains lots of information about ASP,
asp, as well as Asp."<br>
<br>
Set RegularExpressionObject = New RegExp<br>
<br>
With RegularExpressionObject<br>
.Pattern = "ASP"<br>
.IgnoreCase = False<br>
.Global = True<br>
End With<br>
<br>
Set expressionmatch = RegularExpressionObject.Execute(StringToSearch)<br>
<br>
If expressionmatch.Count > 0 Then<br>
For Each expressionmatched in expressionmatch<br>
Response.Write "<B>" & expressionmatched.Value & "</B>
was matched at position <B>" & expressionmatched.FirstIndex &
"</B><BR>"<br>
Next<br>
<br>
Else<br>
Response.Write "<B>" & RegularExpressionObject.Pattern &
"</B> was not found in the string: <B>" & StringToSearch &
"</B>."<br>
End If<br>
<br>
Set RegularExpressionObject = nothing<br>
%></font></p>
<p>As with the Test method, the RegExp’s Global and IgnoreCase properties are useful.</p>
<h3>The RegExp Replace method</h3>
<p>This can be used to replace a part of a string using Regular Expression matching. For
example, in the script below, .co.uk is changed into .com:</p>
<p><font color="#808080"><%<br>
InitialString = "www.foo.co.uk"<br>
<br>
Set RegularExpressionObject = New RegExp<br>
<br>
With RegularExpressionObject<br>
.Pattern = ".co.uk"<br>
.IgnoreCase = True<br>
.Global = True<br>
End With<br>
<br>
ReplacedString = RegularExpressionObject.Replace(InitialString, ".com")<br>
<br>
Response.Write "Replaced " & InitialString & " with " &
ReplacedString<br>
<br>
Set RegularExpressionObject = nothing<br>
%></font></p>
<h2>Real life Regular Expressions</h2>
<p>So far, this article has shown how to use the VBScript RegExp object to manipulate and
test strings, but there is nothing here that couldn’t already be done with other
VBScript functions. The power of Regular Expressions only become apparent when more
complex situations are encountered. For example, the VBScript function below will strip
out all the HTML tags from strings:</p>
<p><font color="#808080"><%<br>
Function stripHTMLtags(HTMLstring)<br>
<br>
Set RegularExpressionObject = New RegExp<br>
<br>
With RegularExpressionObject<br>
.Pattern = "<[^>]+>"<br>
.IgnoreCase = True<br>
.Global = True<br>
End With<br>
<br>
stripHTMLtags = RegularExpressionObject.Replace(HTMLstring, "")<br>
Set RegularExpressionObject = nothing<br>
<br>
End Function<br>
%></font></p>
<p>The function can then be called using something like:</p>
<p><font color="#808080"><%<br>
Response.Write stripHTMLtags("<B>This <I>is</I> <TT
style=""background-color: rgb(0,255,255)"">some</TT> <FONT
COLOR=#FF00FF> HTML</FONT></B>")<br>
%></font></p>
<p>The function works because it replaces HTML tags with a null character. HTML tags are
identified using the Regular Expression held in the Pattern property. This is a sequence
of special characters. This means that a HTML tag should start with a "<". It
should then contain one or more characters except for a greater than sign
">". This is indicated by enclosing the greater than sign in square brackets,
and using the plus sign (which means match the preceding character one or more times. The
^ symbol denotes that the character should NOT appear. Finally, it should contain a
greater than sign to close the HTML tag.<br>
<br>
Looks complicated? Unfortunately most things that originate on Unix systems are! The best
way to figure out Regular Expressions is to play around with them – check the bottom
of this article for guides to the various characters that can be used. As a further help,
a couple more regular expressions are shown below:<br>
<br>
The dollar sign is used to look for matches at the end of a string, so the following will
look for .co.uk at the end of a string:</p>
<p><font color="#808080">.Pattern = ".co.uk$"</font></p>
<p>Use a bar to specify that several expressions should be matched. The following will
match .co.uk or .com at the end of a string:</p>
<p><font color="#808080">.Pattern = ".co.uk$|.com$"</font></p>
<h2>Using Regular Expressions in Visual Basic</h2>
<p>Few people seem to know that Regular Expressions can also be used with Visual Basic 5
or 6. All you need to do is to include a reference to "Microsoft VBScript Regular
Expressions 1.0" in your project.</p>
<p>The following Visual Basic sample code will replace some HTML in a TextBox called Text1
with plain text:</p>
<p><font color="#808080">Dim RegularExpressionObject As New VBScript_RegExp_10.RegExp<br>
<br>
With RegularExpressionObject<br>
.Pattern = "<[^>]+>"<br>
.IgnoreCase = True<br>
.Global = True<br>
End With<br>
<br>
Text1.Text = RegularExpressionObject.Replace(Text1.Text, "")<br>
<br>
Set RegularExpressionObject = Nothing<br>
</font></p>
<p>Note that more recent versions of the VBScript Regular Expressions library now exist,
so it may also be possible to make a reference to "Microsoft VBScript Regular
Expressions 5.5". If this library is used then the first line of the Visual Basic
code will have to be modified to:</p>
<p><font color="#808080">Dim RegularExpressionObject As New VBScript_RegExp_55.RegExp</font></p>
<h2>Further Reading</h2>
<ul>
<li>Regular Expressions are available in recent versions of JavaScript, so Netscape have
provided a <a href="http://developer.netscape.com/docs/manuals/js/client/jsguide/regexp.htm">guide to
their use</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/languages/clinic/scripting051099.asp">Microsoft
Beefs up VBScript with Regular Expressions</a> - Microsoft's guide to using Regular
Expressions with VBScript.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>A <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/script56/html/vspropattern.asp?frame=true">list of
special characters</a> that can be used in Regular Expressions is available in the
VBScript 5 Language Reference. (at msdn.microsoft.com/scripting).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://regexlib.com/">Regular Expression Library</a> - A small but growing
library of Regular Expressions suitable for use with VBScript. Users can add new regular
expressions, and rate those that are already there.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>These two books are invaluable if you want to make extensive use of Regular Expressions
with any language that supports them:</li>
</ul>
<p align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565922573/brettbcom"><img border="0" src="images/MasteringRegularExpressions.jpg" alt="Mastering Regular Expressions: Powerful Techniques for Perl and Other Tools" WIDTH="107" HEIGHT="140"></a>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672319365/brettbcom"><img border="0" src="images/TeachYourselfRegularExpressions.jpg" alt="Sams Teach Yourself Regular Expressions..." WIDTH="113" HEIGHT="140"></a> </p>
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<h2>Useful Development Tools</h2>
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<td width="100%" valign="top"><a
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web application can also be incorporated into the reports. Documentation is created in
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<td width="100%" valign="top">
<a
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align="absmiddle" border="0"></a> <a
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<td width="100%" valign="top"><a
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</tr>
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<td width="100%" valign="top">
The Index Server Companion is a Windows application that extends the functionality of Microsoft Index Server so that it is able to index content from remote websites and also from ODBC databases. As such it can be used as a low cost alternative to Site Server 3.0 Search.
</td>
</tr>
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<td width="100%" valign="top">
<a
href="http://www.brettb.com/redirector.asp?URL=downloads/IndexServerCompanionDocumentation.zip"><img
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<a
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<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
<tr>
<td width="100%" valign="top"><a
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</tr>
<tr>
<td width="100%" valign="top">Automatically creates developer documentation for ASP.NET web applications written in C# or VB.NET.
Documentation for SQL Server 7/2000 databases and C#/VB.NET components associated with the
web application can also be incorporated into the reports. Documentation is created in
HTML, HTML Help and plain text formats.</td>
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<td width="100%" valign="top">
<a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/ASP.NETDocToolSamples/SampleWeb.NET/SampleWeb.NET.chm"><img
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src="images/Icon_HTML.gif" width="16" height="16" alt="View Sample Output (HTML Format)"
align="absmiddle" border="0"></a> <a
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target="_blank" title="View Sample Output (HTML Format)">View Sample Output</a> (HTML Format).<br>
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<br>
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<tr>
<td width="100%" valign="top"><a
href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Products.SQLDocumentationTool.asp" target="_blank" title="SQL Documentation Tool"><strong>SQL
Documentation Tool</strong></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="100%" valign="top">The SQL Documentation Tool creates technical documentation for Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and 2000 databases. Technical documentation is created in HTML and HTML Help formats. The HTML Help format documentation is fully searchable and cross referenced. The SQL Documentation Tool documents SQL Server Tables, Views, Stored Procedures, Triggers and Table Relationships.</td>
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<td width="100%" valign="top">
<a
href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/SQLDocumentationTool/Reports/Test_Project/Test_Project.chm"><img
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Output</a> (HTML Help format).<br>
<a
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src="images/Icon_HTML.gif" width="16" height="16" alt="View Sample Output (HTML Format)"
align="absmiddle" border="0"></a> <a
href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/SQLDocumentationTool/Reports/Test_Project/Default.htm"
target="_blank" title="View Sample Output (HTML Format)">View Sample Output</a> (HTML Format).<br>
<a
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href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Products.TheWebsiteUtility.asp" target="_blank" title="The Website Utility"><strong>The Website Utility</strong></a></td>
</tr>
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<td width="100%" valign="top">The Website Utility examines websites for errors and
areas that need to be optimised for search engines by using a built in web crawling engine.
Errors checked for include broken or moved hyperlinks, missing page titles and missing meta tags.
It also generates HTML for use in creating website site maps (table of contents pages - like <a href="TableOfContents.asp" title="Example Table of Contents">this one</a>), and is
able to create both client-side <a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Products.TheWebsiteUtility.JavaScriptSearchEngine.asp" title="JavaScript Search Engine">JavaScript Search Engines</a> and server-side <a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Products.TheWebsiteUtility.ASPSearchEngine.asp" title="JavaScript Search Engine">ASP Search Engines</a> for a website.</td>
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<a
href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/TheWebsiteUtility/Reports/ASPAlliance/default.htm"><img
src="images/Icon_HTML.gif" width="16" height="16" alt="View Sample Output (HTML Format)"
align="absmiddle" border="0"></a> <a
href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/TheWebsiteUtility/Reports/ASPAlliance/default.htm"
target="_blank" title="View Sample Output (HTML Format)">View Sample Output</a> (HTML Format).<br>
<a
href="http://www.brettb.com/redirector.asp?URL=downloads/TheWebsiteUtilityTrial.zip"><img
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<br>
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<td width="100%" valign="top"><a
href="http://www.regnow.com/softsell/nph-softsell.cgi?item=8452-18&affiliate=44172" target="_blank" title="Text Workbench"><strong>Text Workbench</strong></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="100%" valign="top">Text Workbench is a file search and replacement utility for text files and Microsoft Office documents. Make rapid file replacements on multiple files and folders full of files. Advanced replacement options include regular expressions support. It even works on remote file systems via FTP. A Regular Expression Laboratory allows advanced pattern matching and replacement expressions to be built and tested. This great utility will make your everyday development tasks much easier!
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="100%" valign="top">
<a
href="http://www.regnow.com/trialware/download/Download_TxtWrBSetup.exe?item=8452-18&affiliate=44172"><img
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Trial Version</a> (3Mb ZIP file; you have the option to either install directly from this link or save the file for later installation).</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<h2>Author details</h2>
<p><p><a href="http://www.brettb.com/" title="View Brett's personal website">Brett Burridge</a>
spent two years working in the <a href="http://www.essex.ac.uk/"
title="University of Essex">University of Essex</a> Computing Service, before moving to <a
href="http://www.intapps.com/" title="The Internet Applications Group">The Internet
Applications Group</a> in the Autumn of 1999, where he developed e-Business applications for a range of
corporate clients and dot-com start ups.</P>
<P>Brett is presently employed as an Internet developer and technical writer
through his own company,
<a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Default.asp" title="Winnersh Triangle Web Solutions Limited" target="_blank">Winnersh Triangle Web Solutions Limited</a>.
The company produces a number of
innovative products, including the popular
<a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Products.ASPDocumentationTool.asp" target="_blank" title="ASP Documentation Tool™ - creates project documentation for ASP 2.0 and 3.0 websites written in VBScript and JScript, and also SQL Server 2000 databases">ASP Documentation Tool™</a>, the <a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Products.IndexServerCompanion.asp" target="_blank" title="Index Server Companion - extends the functionality of Index Server to allow indexing of content from remote websites and ODBC databases">Index Server Companion</a>, the <a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Products.ASPNETDocumentationTool.asp" target="_blank" title="ASP.NET Documentation Tool - creates documentation for ASP.NET web applications written in VB.NET and C#">ASP.NET Documentation Tool</a>, the <a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Products.SQLServerDocumentationTool.asp" target="_blank" title="SQL Server Documentation Tool - Documents Microsoft SQL Server Databases">SQL Server Documentation Tool</a> and <a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Products.TheWebsiteUtility.asp" target="_blank" title="The Website Utility">The Website Utility</a>.
The company is also available for <a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Services.Main.asp" target="_blank" title="web application design and development">web application design and development</a> at reasonable rates, primarily using
<a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Services.Microsoft.asp" target="_blank" title="Development using Microsoft technologies such as ASP, ASP.NET, Visual Basic, SQL Server">Microsoft technologies</a> (ASP, ASP.NET, Visual Basic, SQL Server) but also using <a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Services.OpenSource.asp" target="_blank" title="Open source development using technologies such as PHP, MySQL and Perl">open source</a>
technologies such as PHP, MySQL and Perl. Specialist services include development
of <a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Services.IndexServer.asp" target="_blank" title="Development of search solutions using Microsoft's Index Server and Site Server 3.0 Search">search solutions</a> using Microsoft's Index Server and Site Server 3.0 Search.
</P>
<P>
As well as the ASPAlliance, Brett has written articles for <a href="http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue33/nt-explorer/" title="Read Brett's most recent article for Ariadne.ac.uk" target="_blank">Ariadne.ac.uk</a>
and <a href="http://www.asptoday.com/content.asp?id=1435" target="_blank" title="Read Brett's first ASPToday article">ASPToday</a>, and has contributed recipes to the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672325241/brettbcom" target="_blank" title="ASP.NET Developer's Cookbook">ASP.NET Developer's Cookbook</a>.
<small><a href="Links.asp" style="color: rgb(252,253,253);">links</a></small>
</P>
<p>
Outside web development, Brett is interested in digital photography (here's my <a href="http://www.brettb.com/gallery.asp" target="_blank" title="My digital photo gallery">photo gallery</a>), <a href="http://www.brettb.com/MyTropicalFishtank.asp" target="_blank" title="My Tropical Fish!">tropical fishkeeping</a>
and collecting contemporary works of art by artists such as <a href="http://www.brettb.com/Doug_Hyde_Gallery.asp" title="My Doug Hyde Limited Edition Sculptures and Prints" target="_blank">Doug Hyde</a>.
</p>
<p>Contact Brett by emailing <script language="JavaScript"><!--
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<p align="center">
<a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Default.asp?FROM=http://authors.aspalliance.com/brettb/VBScriptRegularExpressions.asp" target="_blank"><IMG SRC="images/WinnershTriangleWebSolutions_BannerAd2.png" width="468" height="60" alt="Winnersh Triangle Web Solutions - Quality web development at affordable prices" border="0"></a>
</p>
</p>
<h2>Article history</h2>
<p>"VBScript regular expressions" originally published on ASPWatch.com on
November 10 1999. Republished on ASPAlliance.com on 28 September 2001.</p>
<p><a href="Default.asp">ASP Kitchen</a>: <a href="ASPWatchArticles.asp">ASPWatch.com
articles</a>: VBScript Regular Expressions</p>
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<tr><td bgcolor="#CC0000" colspan="2" style="BORDER-TOP: rgb(102,102,102) 1px solid;"><small><font color="white">© page content copyright Brett Burridge 1998 - 2004.</font></small></td></tr>
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