Splunk Search

Extract string from text based on character position

kharlow
New Member

Hi,
I’m looking to extract a numerical value from a string, however struggling as there is nothing to use as a delimiter

I tried using this however it doesn’t work

 (\s){11}(8<field>\s)

Example:

foo-1a-barr12345678-aa11
foo-2b-baar87654321-bb22
foo-2c-bbar18273645-aa12

I wish to extract the number starting from char 12 to 20:
12345678
87654321
18273645

0 Karma

niketn
Legend

@kharlow, try the following regular expression

  "[^-]+-[^-]+-\D+(?<field>[^-]+)-"

Or if the raw data/field name on which regular expression is being applied begins with the format specified in the question

  "^[^-]+-[^-]+-\D+(?<field>[^-]+)-"

Following is a run anywhere search example based on your sample data where commands from makeresults to rename generate sample raw events as per the question:

| makeresults
| eval data="foo-1a-barr12345678-aa11;foo-2b-baar87654321-bb22;foo-2c-bbar18273645-aa12"
| makemv data delim=";"
| mvexpand data
| rename data as _raw
| rex field=_raw "[^-]+-[^-]+-\D+(?<field>[^-]+)-"
____________________________________________
| makeresults | eval message= "Happy Splunking!!!"
Got questions? Get answers!

Join the Splunk Community Slack to learn, troubleshoot, and make connections with fellow Splunk practitioners in real time!

Meet up IRL or virtually!

Join Splunk User Groups to connect and learn in-person by region or remotely by topic or industry.

Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

Cisco Data Fabric from Architecture to Investigation, Better SOC Visibility, and More ...

Splunk Lantern is Splunk’s customer success center that provides practical guidance from Splunk experts on key ...

The Trust Gap: Why a Data Foundation is Fundamental to an Agentic Enterprise

The Trust Gap: Why a data foundation is fundamental to an  Agentic Enterprise.   Agentic AI is transforming ...

Data Management Digest – September 2026

    Welcome to the September 2026 edition of Data Management Digest! September brought a fresh wave of ...