topic Re: How to regex specific word string? in Splunk Search

How to regex specific word string?

limalbert — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 18:01:04 GMT

Hello,

Ignoring commas and spaces, how do I grab just the name string from the below log? Below regex kept returning the value of FirstName. It's not seeing name as "Name=", but as "*Name=*".

Regex:

"Name=(?<nameCaptured>[^\,]*)"

Log:

FirstName=Hello, LastName=World, Name=HelloWorld, Address=NoAddress

Re: How to regex specific word string?

manjunathmeti — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 18:54:26 GMT

hi @limalbert ,

Actually, your regex is matching 3 groups and the first matched value is returned to the field nameCaptured. If you set max_match=0 in rex command you'll see all the matches,

| makeresults | eval _raw="FirstName=Hello, LastName=World, Name=HelloWorld, Address=NoAddress" | rex max_match=0 "Name=(?<nameCaptured>[^\,]*)"

You can get the value of Name as below:

| makeresults | eval _raw="FirstName=Hello, LastName=World, Name=HelloWorld, Address=NoAddress" | rex max_match=0 "Name=(?<nameCaptured>[^\,]*)" | eval NameCaptured=mvindex(nameCaptured, 2)

Or change regex to match only Name=,

| makeresults | eval _raw="FirstName=Hello, LastName=World, Name=HelloWorld, Address=NoAddress" | rex "\W+Name=(?<nameCaptured>[^\,]*)"

If this reply helps you, an upvote/like would be appreciated.

Re: How to regex specific word string?

richgalloway — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 18:13:46 GMT

There is an implicit '.*' at the beginning of every regex unless it starts with '^'. To get a string and not a substring the regex must uniquely identify the string to find. Try one of these:

"\bName=(?<nameCaptured>[^\,]*)"

", Name=(?<nameCaptured>[^\,]*)"

Re: How to regex specific word string?

limalbert — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 18:49:47 GMT

Adding "\b" before Name doesn't do the trick. By adding a comma and space, it will only capture data in that format.

Unfortunately, I notice some logs may or may not have a comma and a space. But the string "Version=" is definitely there.

Re: How to regex specific word string?

richgalloway — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 01:24:08 GMT

Try \W in place of \b. If that doesn't work then please share the full set of requirements as well as more complete sample events so we can offer better solutions.