Regex in Dart

A Regex or regexp (short for regular expression) is a sequence of characters that define a search pattern – it is mostly used for pattern matching with strings. Regex is supported by most programming languages. Dart provides this support through its RegExp class. Regex in Dart has the same syntax and semantics as those in JavaScript.

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Constructor parameters

Before we could use the RegExp class, we need to instantiate it. The class’s constructor takes in some parameters. These parameters and their default values are listed below:

  • String source: The regular expression in string form.
  • bool multiLine: false: Bool that sets whether or not the regex matches multiple lines.
  • bool caseSensitive: true: Bool that sets whether or not the regex is case sensitive.
  • bool unicode: false: Bool that sets whether or not the regex is in Unicode mode.
  • bool dotAll: false: Bool that sets whether or not “.” in the regex matches the line terminators.

Out of these parameters, all except the source string are optional.

Class methods

The RegExp class contains several useful methods:

  • Iterable<RegExpMatch> allMatches(String input, [int start = 0]): This returns all the matches of the regex on the input string. If start is provided, it only starts looking for matches from that index.
  • RegExpMatch firstMatch(String input): This returns the first regex match on the input string. Method returns null if no match is found.
  • bool hasMatch(String input): This function returns a bool that determines whether or not an input string has at least one match.
  • String stringMatch(String input): This method returns the first match in string form.
  • Match matchAsPrefix(String string, [int start = 0]): This method returns a match if it’s found at the start of the input string. The start parameter, if provided, can be used to change this starting position.

Implementation

Below, we’ll at how the RegExp class can come in handy:

import 'dart:convert';
void main() {
//------------------------allMatches Example---------------------------------
print('Example 1');
//We want to extract ages from the following string:
String str1 = 'Sara is 26 years old. Maria is 18 while Masood is 8.';
//Declaring a RegExp object with a pattern that matches sequences of digits
RegExp reg1 = new RegExp(r'(\d+)');
//Iterating over the matches returned from allMatches
Iterable allMatches = reg1.allMatches(str1);
var matchCount = 0;
allMatches.forEach((match) {
matchCount += 1;
print('Match ${matchCount}: ' + str1.substring(match.start, match.end));
});
//------------------------firstMatch Example---------------------------------
print('\nExample 2');
//We want to find the first sequence of word characters in the following string:
//Note: A word character is any single letter, number or underscore
String str2 = '#%^!_as22 d3*fg%';
//Declaring a RegExp object with a pattern that matches sequences of word
//characters
RegExp reg2 = new RegExp(r'(\w+)');
//Using the firstMatch function to display the first match found
Match firstMatch = reg2.firstMatch(str2);
print('First match: ${str2.substring(firstMatch.start, firstMatch.end)}');
//--------------------------hasMatch Example---------------------------------
print('\nExample 3');
//We want to check whether a following strings have white space or not
String str3 = 'Achoo!';
String str4 = 'Bless you.';
//Declaring a RegExp object with a pattern that matches whitespaces
RegExp reg3 = new RegExp(r'(\s)');
//Using the hasMatch method to check strings for whitespaces
print('The string "' + str3 +'" contains whitespaces: ${reg3.hasMatch(str3)}');
print('The string "' + str4 +'" contains whitespaces: ${reg3.hasMatch(str4)}');
//--------------------------stringMatch Example-------------------------------
print('\nExample 4');
//We want to print the first non-digit sequence in the following strings;
String str5 = '121413dog299toy01food';
String str6 = '00Tom1231frog';
//Declaring a RegExp object with a pattern that matches sequence of non-digit
//characters
RegExp reg4 = new RegExp(r'(\D+)');
//Using the stringMatch method to find the first non-digit match:
String str5Match = reg4.stringMatch(str5);
String str6Match = reg4.stringMatch(str6);
print('First match for "' + str5 + '": $str5Match');
print('First match for "' + str6 + '": $str6Match');
//--------------------------matchAsPrefix Example-----------------------------
print('\nExample 5');
//We want to check if the following strings start with the word "Hello" or not:
String str7 = 'Greetings, fellow human!';
String str8 = 'Hello! How are you today?';
//Declaring a RegExp object with a pattern that matches the word "Hello"
RegExp reg5 = new RegExp(r'Hello');
//Using the matchAsPrefix method to match "Hello" to the start of the strings
Match str7Match = reg5.matchAsPrefix(str7);
Match str8Match = reg5.matchAsPrefix(str8);
print('"' + str7 + '" starts with hello: ${str7Match != null}');
print('"' + str8 + '" starts with hello: ${str8Match != null}');
}

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