help on regexp to extract words between ""

aMajorLine = 'var _0x3f86=["\x72\x65\x64","\x67\x72\x65\x65\x6E","\x62\x6C\x75\x65"]';
[a,b] = regexp(aMajorLine,'var _0x3f86=\[\"([\w\\]+)\",?]+\]','tokens')

I want to extract the words inside "". The results is empty. Is there something wrong?

Answer 1

[the cyclist]

I find it difficult to debug someone else's regexp. :-(

Before seeing @Ruger28's elegant solution, I would have done

matches = regexp(aMajorLine,'"[\w*,\\]*"','match')
matches = regexprep(matches,'"','');

Note that I first pull out with the double-quote characters, then strip them out in the second line. It is possible to do this in one regexp step instead, using "lookaround" assertions, but I find that less easy to understand.

Answer 2

[Ruger28]

if using R2016b or later

aMajorLine = 'var _0x3f86=["\x72\x65\x64","\x67\x72\x65\x65\x6E","\x62\x6C\x75\x65"]';

extractedText = extractBetween(aMajorLine,'"','"');

which gives:

extractedText =

  3×1 cell array

    {'\x72\x65\x64'        }
    {'\x67\x72\x65\x65\x6E'}
    {'\x62\x6C\x75\x65'    }

[the cyclist]

I did not know about extractBetween. Elegant!

I am sure I will forget by the time I need it. :-(

[Ruger28]

It is pretty amazing! There is also extractBefore and extractAfter, and they are imensly useful when convoluted regexp's are normally needed. Only thing is that they are 2016 or later.

[raym]

Unlucky I'm using R2016a