Debugging of regular expressions

Let’s consider an example of debugging of regular expression with the help of HarePoint Explorer for SharePoint. As initial data, requests to FrontPage Server Extensions will be taken into consideration. These are the examples of basic requests sent from Microsoft Word to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007:

 
method=get 
document:12.0.0.4518&service_name=&document_name=Lists/Links/Untitled_2.css&
old_theme_html=false&force=true&get_option=none
&doc_version=&timeout=0&expandWebPartPages=true 
 
method=put document:6.0.2.6551&service_name=/test&document=
[document_name=Shared Documents/MSF.doc;meta_info=[vti_timelastmodified;
TW|09 Sep 2008 10:54:28 -0000]]&
put_option=edit&comment=&keep_checked_out=false 
 
method=remove documents:12.0.0.4518&service_name=&url_list
[Lists/Links/Untitled_2.css;Lists/Links/Untitled_1.css
;Lists/Links/Untitled_3.css;Lists/Links/Untitled_4.css]

Our task is to create regular expressions for searching names of documents mentioned in the requests above as well as to analyze the results.

Let’s open a new code window and change the text of the main method in the following way:

C#

 
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Text;
using MAPILab.SharePoint.Explorer.CodeForm;
using MAPILab.SharePoint.Explorer.Utilities.ScriptRunner;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
 
public class Tester
{
    static void Main(
         MAPILab.SharePoint.Explorer.CodeForm.MLCodeForm thisForm
        ,MAPILab.SharePoint.Explorer.Utilities.ScriptRunner.MLBrowser browser
        )
   {
        string str1 = @"method=get document:12.0.0.4518&service_name=
&document_name=Lists/Links/Untitled_2.css&old_theme_html=false&force=true
&get_option=none&doc_version=&timeout=0&expandWebPartPages=true";
 
        string str2 = @"method=put document:6.0.2.6551&service_name=
/test&document=[document_name=Shared Documents/MSF.doc;meta_info=
[vti_timelastmodified;TW|09 Sep 2008 10:54:28 -0000]]&put_option=
edit&comment=&keep_checked_out=false";
 
        string str3 = @"method=remove documents:12.0.0.4518&service_name=
&url_list=Lists/Links/Untitled_2.css;Lists/Links/Untitled_1.css
;Lists/Links/Untitled_3.css;Lists/Links/Untitled_4.css]";
 
        Regex regex1 = new Regex(@"[&\[]document_name=(?<documentName>[^&;]+)");
        Regex regex2 = new Regex(@"(url_list=\[|;)(?<documentName>[^;\]]+)");
 
        // Output browser configuration 
        //browser.Text = "Browser window"; 
        //browser.DisplayMode = 
        MAPILab.SharePoint.Explorer.Utilities.ScriptRunner.DisplayMode.Expanded; 
        browser.ReturnValue = 
        new object[] {regex1.Match(str1), regex1.Match(str2), regex2.Matches(str3)};
        }
}

Visual Basic

 
Imports System
Imports System.Collections.Generic
Imports System.Diagnostics
Imports System.Text
Imports MAPILab.SharePoint.Explorer.CodeForm
Imports MAPILab.SharePoint.Explorer.Utilities.ScriptRunner
Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions
 
Public Class Tester
    Shared Sub Main(ByVal thisForm 
    As MAPILab.SharePoint.Explorer.CodeForm.MLCodeForm, 
                    ByVal browser 
                    As MAPILab.SharePoint.Explorer.Utilities.ScriptRunner.MLBrowser)
               
        Dim str1 
        As String = "method=get document:12.0.0.4518&service_name=
&document_name=Lists/Links/Untitled_2.css&old_theme_html=false&force=true 
&get_option=none&doc_version=&timeout=0&expandWebPartPages=true"
        Dim str2 
        As String = "method=put document:6.0.2.6551&service_name=
/test&document=[document_name=Shared Documents/MSF.doc;meta_info=
[vti_timelastmodified;TW|09 Sep 2008 10:54:28 -0000]]&put_option=
edit&comment=&keep_checked_out=false" 
        Dim str3 
        As String = "method=remove documents:12.0.0.4518&service_name=
&url_list=Lists/Links/Untitled_2.css;Lists/Links/Untitled_1.css
;Lists/Links/Untitled_3.css;Lists/Links/Untitled_4.css]"
        
        Dim regex1 
        As New Regex("[&\[]document_name=(?<documentName>[^&;]+)") 
        Dim regex2 
        As New Regex("(url_list=\[|;)(?<documentName>[^;\]]+)")
        
        ' Output browser configuration 
        'browser.Text = "Browser window" 
        'browser.DisplayMode = 
        MAPILab.SharePoint.Explorer.Utilities.ScriptRunner.DisplayMode.Expanded 
        browser.ReturnValue = 
        New Object() {regex1.Match(str1), regex1.Match(str2), regex2.Matches(str3)}
    End Sub 
End Class

For the first two cases, one and the same regular expression regex1 can be used in this script. The third case is more difficult than the previous ones as the initial data contains several names of the document. A separate regular expression regex2 was specially created for it. In order to check the correctness of functioning of these regular expressions let’s return their results in the form of object array. This object array will be shown in the browser of the object model.

Click to open real size screenshot

If we open the nodes as it shown in the picture, we can see that all regular expressions were created correctly. Now you need only to copy them into the source code of the commercial product as we did it while we were developing MAPILab Statistics for SharePoint!

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