Regex to parse functions with arbitrary depth

Question

I\'m parsing a simple language (Excel formulas) for the functions contained within. A function name must start with any letter, followed by any number of letters/numbers, and e

Answer 1

This is well within the capabilities of .NET regexes. Here's a working demo:

using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

namespace Test
{
  class Test
  {
    public static void Main()
    {
      Regex r = new Regex(@"
        (?[a-z][a-z0-9]*\()
          (?
            (?>
               \((?)
             |
               \)(?<-DEPTH>)
             |
               [^()]+
            )*
            (?(DEPTH)(?!))
          )
        \)", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace);

      string formula = @"=Date(Year(A$5),Month(A$5),1)-(Weekday(Date(Year((A$5+1)),Month(A$5),1))-1)+{0;1;2;3;4;5}*7+{1,2,3,4,5,6,7}-1";

      foreach (Match m in r.Matches(formula))
      {
        Console.WriteLine("{0}\n", m.Value);
      }
    }
  }
}

output:

Date(Year(A$5),Month(A$5),1)

Weekday(Date(Year((A$5+1)),Month(A$5),1))

The main problem with your regex was that you were including the function name as part of the recursive match--for example:

Name1(...Name2(...)...)

Any open-paren that wasn't preceded by name was not counted, because it was matched by the final alternative, |.?), and that threw off the balance with the close-parens. That also meant that you couldn't match formulas like =MyFunc((1+1)), which you mentioned in the text but didn't include in the example. (I threw in an extra set of parens to demonstrate.)

EDIT: Here's the version with support for non-significant, quoted parens:

  Regex r = new Regex(@"
    (?[a-z][a-z0-9]*\()
      (?
        (?>
           \((?)
         |
           \)(?<-DEPTH>)
         |
           ""[^""]+""
         |
           [^()""]+
        )*
        (?(DEPTH)(?!))
      )
    \)", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace);