Their properties and methods behave different from Regexp in other famous languages. (PHP, javascript, etc)
I am not criticizing, just reporting facts and I offer a sugestion in the end that makes it compatible and a "real" findall method, you can call it allMatches method
RegExp.text is actually the "Match[0]" but is not included in the Count value, making a bit confusing if the person didn't read the documentation carefully.
Checking Count=0 leads a beginner to think "Oh, there is no matches..." leaving the RegExp.Text that actually has Match[0]
findall can not be executed against the full pattern with some paretheses groups. It only works if we provide "subgroup pattern" to it.
For example:
RegExp.findall( "the whole text 1234", "[\\w\\ ]+(\\d+)", RegExp.Extended)
Will find only the whole string, skipping subgroup match. But if the pattern is only \\w+ it finds 4 tokens.
I wrote this peace of code that makes it similar to other languages.
Using the example above, this Function will return the full source matched AND all its submatches, with a real Count= 2 that is the whole + the submatch
Public Function allMatches(source As String, pattern As String, Optional regOptions As Integer = 11) As String[]
Dim sx As New String[]
Dim i As Integer
Dim reg As New RegExp(source, pattern, regOptions) '11 = extended + multiline + case insensitive
If reg.text Then
sx.Add(reg.text) ' <= Match 0
Endif
If reg.Count > 0 Then ' <= Subgroup Matches 1, 2, etc...
i = 1
While i <= reg.Count
sx.Add(reg[i].text)
i += 1
Wend
Endif
Return sx
End
That could be added in future versions, an allMatches method, please show this to Benoir.
