Is it possible to use a single rex command to deal with multiple scenarios?

[andrewtrobec]

Hello All,

I am trying to write a single rex command that will handle a number of different field entires. Basically I have an effort being stored (painfully) in hours and minutes, but the values for the field can vary. Here is an example of the possibilities:

Case|Effort
1|30 minutes
2|1 hour
3|1 hour 30 minutes
4|2 hours
5|2 hours 30 minutes

What I'd like to do is write a single rex that extracts the hour and minute values when they are available. So far I've written one that handles cases 3 and 5:

rex field=Effort "(?<hours>\d+)\s\w+\s(?<mins>\d+)\s\w+"

What I can't get are cases 1 2 and 4. I mean, I can rewrite the rex to only get those cases, but I don't know how to combine them...

Do you have any pointers on how to do this?

Thank you and best regards,

Andrew

[cpetterborg · Accepted solution]

Yes:

((?<hours>\d+)\shours?\s)?((?<mins>\d+)\sminutes?)?

You basically just have to make things rather explicit and optional.

[andrewtrobec]

Perfect! Thank you so much, I was almost there...