topic Regex : Extract text between first and second semi-colon from the right in Splunk Search

Regex : Extract text between first and second semi-colon from the right

mdeterville — Sun, 25 Apr 2021 03:37:00 GMT

Hello SMEs:

I need some assistance extracting everything between the 1st and 2nd semi-colon ; (FROM THE RIGHT) from a string like this: SITES;Bypass;Whitelist;Finance;User Business Accept

In this case, the output would be Finance.

Note: text between the semi-colon's may change

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Regards,

Mac

Re: Regex : Extract text between first and second semi-colon from the right

tscroggins — Sun, 25 Apr 2021 04:04:29 GMT

@mdeterville

The * quantifier is greedy by default. This should work:

| rex ".*;(?<value>.*);"

Try it here.

Re: Regex : Extract text between first and second semi-colon from the right

mdeterville — Sun, 25 Apr 2021 04:16:44 GMT

@tscroggins Worked like a charm - Thanks for the quick response!

Re: Regex : Extract text between first and second semi-colon from the right

mdeterville — Thu, 06 May 2021 20:30:25 GMT

@tscroggins Ran into an issue where the data set also includes some categories only contains 1 Semi colon, similar to: "Business/Economy;User Accepted Business".

Any idea if OR conditions can be used to combine the initial solution and another solution that grabs everything before the first semi-colon (FROM THE LEFT) when it finds fields with only one semi colon?

Thanks in advance.

-Mac

Re: Regex : Extract text between first and second semi-colon from the right

tscroggins — Thu, 06 May 2021 22:38:44 GMT

@mdeterville

There are many (infinite!) ways to construct regular expressions. To capture everything between the first semicolon and either the second semicolon or the end of the line, you can use e.g.:

| rex ".*?;(?<value>[^;$]+);?"

$ is an anchor (a special token) representing the end of the string. The construct [^;$]+ means one or more characters not matching semicolon or end of string. The capture will stop when it encounters either of those characters.

You can plug the regular expression into regex101.com or another tool to test it with a step by step explanation.