powershell reg ex replace whole string with part of string

Question

I'm rubbish at reg ex's anyway and been trying all day with no success.

input string:

"fred XY-C4569-32 (Bloggs) 24 acacia (revision 1) road"

I just want to extract

"fred XY-C4569-32"

fred may be shorter or longer e.g. (ted or william) so i cant just sub string in on an index to do it.

I have been trying stuff like

-replace "^([a-z0-9 -]*) ([a-z0-9 \\(\\) -])" , '$1'

but no joy so far

thanks

Avinash Raj · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-02 13:52:17Z

2

Almost there, just add + or * next to the second character class.

-replace "^([A-Za-z0-9 -]*\\b) [A-Za-z0-9() -]+" , '$1'

answered Jul 2, 2015 at 13:52

Avinash Raj

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2 Comments

That worked Thanks for that. Any idea why the $1 now gives me "fred XY-C4569-32." with a "." now on the end?

Its Ok I got it now, I had a . on the end of my string I forgot to put in my orig post.