How do I extract text that lies between parentheses (round brackets)?

Question

I have a string User name (sales) and I want to extract the text between the brackets, how would I do this?

I suspect sub-string but I can\'t work out

Answer 1

Much similar to @Gustavo Baiocchi Costa but offset is being calculated with another intermediate Substring.

int innerTextStart = input.IndexOf("(") + 1;
int innerTextLength = input.Substring(start).IndexOf(")");
string output = input.Substring(innerTextStart, innerTextLength);

Answer 2

Here is a general purpose readable function that avoids using regex:

// Returns the text between 'start' and 'end'.
string ExtractBetween(string text, string start, string end)
{
  int iStart = text.IndexOf(start);
  iStart = (iStart == -1) ? 0 : iStart + start.Length;
  int iEnd = text.LastIndexOf(end);
  if(iEnd == -1)
  {
    iEnd = text.Length;
  }
  int len = iEnd - iStart;

  return text.Substring(iStart, len);
}

To call it in your particular example you can do:

string result = ExtractBetween("User name (sales)", "(", ")");

Answer 3

The regex method is superior I think, but if you wanted to use the humble substring

string input= "my name is (Jayne C)";
int start = input.IndexOf("(");
int stop = input.IndexOf(")");
string output = input.Substring(start+1, stop - start - 1);

or

string input = "my name is (Jayne C)";
string output  = input.Substring(input.IndexOf("(") +1, input.IndexOf(")")- input.IndexOf("(")- 1);

Answer 4

A very simple way to do it is by using regular expressions:

Regex.Match("User name (sales)", @"\(([^)]*)\)").Groups[1].Value

---

As a response to the (very funny) comment, here's the same Regex with some explanation:

\(             # Escaped parenthesis, means "starts with a '(' character"
    (          # Parentheses in a regex mean "put (capture) the stuff 
               #     in between into the Groups array" 
       [^)]    # Any character that is not a ')' character
       *       # Zero or more occurrences of the aforementioned "non ')' char"
    )          # Close the capturing group
\)             # "Ends with a ')' character"

Answer 5

Regular expressions might be the best tool here. If you are not famililar with them, I recommend you install Expresso - a great little regex tool.

Something like:

Regex regex = new Regex("\\((?<TextInsideBrackets>\\w+)\\)");
string incomingValue = "Username (sales)";
string insideBrackets = null;
Match match = regex.Match(incomingValue);
if(match.Success)
{
    insideBrackets = match.Groups["TextInsideBrackets"].Value;
}

Answer 6

input.Remove(input.IndexOf(')')).Substring(input.IndexOf('(') + 1);