Match Class

2013-01-16

[This documentation is for preview only, and is subject to change in later releases. Blank topics are included as placeholders.]

Represents the results from a single regular expression match.

Inheritance Hierarchy

System. . :: . .Object
  System.Text.RegularExpressions. . :: . .Capture
    System.Text.RegularExpressions. . :: . .Group
      System.Text.RegularExpressions..::..Match

Namespace: System.Text.RegularExpressions
Assembly: System.Text.RegularExpressions (in System.Text.RegularExpressions.dll)

Syntax

'Declaration
<SerializableAttribute> _
Public Class Match _
    Inherits Group

[SerializableAttribute]
public class Match : Group

[SerializableAttribute]
public ref class Match : public Group

[<SerializableAttribute>]
type Match =  
    class
        inherit Group
    end

public class Match extends Group

The Match type exposes the following members.

Properties

	Name	Description
	Captures	Gets a collection of all the captures matched by the capturing group, in innermost-leftmost-first order (or innermost-rightmost-first order if the regular expression is modified with the RegexOptions.RightToLeft option). The collection may have zero or more items. (Inherited from Group.)
	Empty	Gets the empty group. All failed matches return this empty match.
	Groups	Gets a collection of groups matched by the regular expression.
	Index	The position in the original string where the first character of the captured substring is found. (Inherited from Capture.)
	Length	Gets the length of the captured substring. (Inherited from Capture.)
	Success	Gets a value indicating whether the match is successful. (Inherited from Group.)
	Value	Gets the captured substring from the input string. (Inherited from Capture.)

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Methods

	Name	Description
	Equals(Object)	Determines whether the specified Object is equal to the current Object. (Inherited from Object.)
	Finalize	Allows an object to try to free resources and perform other cleanup operations before it is reclaimed by garbage collection. (Inherited from Object.)
	GetHashCode	Serves as a hash function for a particular type. (Inherited from Object.)
	GetType	Gets the Type of the current instance. (Inherited from Object.)
	MemberwiseClone	Creates a shallow copy of the current Object. (Inherited from Object.)
	NextMatch	Returns a new Match object with the results for the next match, starting at the position at which the last match ended (at the character after the last matched character).
	Result	Returns the expansion of the specified replacement pattern.
	Synchronized	Returns a Match instance equivalent to the one supplied that is suitable to share between multiple threads.
	ToString	Retrieves the captured substring from the input string by calling the Value property. (Inherited from Capture.)

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Remarks

The Match object is immutable and has no public constructor. An instance of the Match class is returned by the Regex..::..Match method and represents the first pattern match in a string. Subsequent matches are represented by Match objects returned by the Match..::..NextMatch method. In addition, a MatchCollection object that consists of zero, one, or more Match objects is returned by the Regex..::..Matches method.

If the Regex..::..Match method fails to match the regular expression pattern, it returns a Match object that is equal to Match..::..Empty. You can use the Success property to determine whether the match was successful.

If a pattern match is successful, the Value property contains the matched substring, the Index property indicates the zero-based starting position of the matched substring in the input string, and the Length property indicates the length of matched substring in the input string.

Because a single match can involve multiple capturing groups, Match has a Groups property that returns the GroupCollection. The GroupCollection has accessors that return each group. The Match instance itself is equivalent to the first object in the collection, at Match.Groups[0] (Match.Groups(0) in Visual Basic), which represents the entire match.

Thread Safety

Any public static (Shared in Visual Basic) members of this type are thread safe. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.

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