Regex replace substring from string

Question

I think this question has been asked a number of times, but I haven't found one with a C# flavour (or I don't know how to convert it to C# from python/perl etc...). I'm creating a function which I want it to remove the matched strings from a string.

I want it to match whole words as well as partial words... here is what I have so far which matches whole words :

public string regExRemove(string text, List <String> words)
    {

        string pattern =
            @"(?<=\b)(" +
            String.Join(
                "|",
                words
                    .Select(w => Regex.Escape(w))
                    .ToArray()) +
             @")(?=\b)";
        var regex = new Regex(pattern);
        string strReturn = regex.Replace(text, "");

        return strReturn;

    }

I've got this from another stackoverflow question. As I said, this is matching whole words. I want it to match the "words" list anywhere within the string "text" and then remove it.

For example I want to remove the words Apples, Peaches which will be in the words list from strings such as I have [apples] I have -apples I have apples and Peaches I Peaches have Apples I.Peaches have[Apples]

Within the words list I'll also be passing in special characters to remove i.e "[", but I also want to replace the "." with spaces etc...

So the list becomes I have I have I have and I have I have

How can I modify the above regex above to do this ?

Thanks

Why not just using the string Replace method foreach word in words, and for "." to " ", etc? — YoryeNathan
– YoryeNathan, Commented Apr 19, 2012 at 2:24
Yorye: Yeah I thought about that, however, I thought Regex would be the best approach. — user1012500
– user1012500, Commented Apr 19, 2012 at 7:52

yamen · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-19 03:38:14Z

1

How about this instead?

    public string stripify(string text, List<string> words)
    {
        var stripped = words.Aggregate(text, (input, word) => input.Replace(word, ""));
        return stripped.Replace('.', ' ');
    }

answered Apr 19, 2012 at 3:38

yamen

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