Multi-line String - Match Regular Expression

[aaronb]

I am trying to figure out the format of a regular expression in order to pull select lines out of a multi-line string and populate those lines as individual elements of a string array while using Match Regular Expression. The overall length of the multi-line string can vary as well as the text contained within the string. The string can contain letters, numbers, and special characters. I have attached an example VI. Within the example VI I only want to return the lines beginning with "Device #" into the array. The number of lines beginning with "Device #" can vary but I want to capture them all.

Or is there a better function to use instead of Match Regular Expression that will give me the desired outcome?  

[aaronb]

Slight change to my example VI attached. This one gives me the match but it does not give the match + the rest of the line.

[ben64 · Accepted solution]

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@aaronb wrote:

I am trying to figure out the format of a regular expression in order to pull select lines out of a multi-line string and populate those lines as individual elements of a string array while using Match Regular Expression. The overall length of the multi-line string can vary as well as the text contained within the string. The string can contain letters, numbers, and special characters. I have attached an example VI. Within the example VI I only want to return the lines beginning with "Device #" into the array. The number of lines beginning with "Device #" can vary but I want to capture them all.

Or is there a better function to use instead of Match Regular Expression that will give me the desired outcome?  

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Match Regular Expression works well for this.

Ben64

[aaronb]

Thanks that works. I guess in my example I was missing the "+ .*" in the regex to include the rest of the line (thats the part I was trying to figure out)

Is there any drawback or difference when using the while loop example I have in the attached VI compared to your For loop example? Your For loop example seems cleaner and I will probably use that but I am trying to understand if there are any negatives in the While loop version.

[ben64]

The way you implemented it it will stop when a Device n is not found even if a Device n+1 exist. It will also capture "Device n" even if it is not at the start of a line. By changing the string to an array of string you can use "^" to anchor the match at the beginning of a line.

Ben64

[aaronb]

OK thanks for all your help!