Regex: Match any punctuation character except . and _

Question

Is there an easy way to match all punctuation except period and underscore, in a C# regex? Hoping to do it without enumerating every single punctuation mark.

Answer 1

Use Regex Subtraction

[\p{P}-[._]] 

Here's the link for .NET Regex documentation (I'm not sure if other flavors support it)... http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms994330.aspx

Here's a C# example

string pattern = @"[\p{P}\p{S}-[._]]"; // added \p{S} to get ^,~ and ` (among others) string test = @"_""'a:;%^&*~`bc!@#.,?"; MatchCollection mx = Regex.Matches(test, pattern); foreach (Match m in mx) {     Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1} {2}", m.Value, m.Index, m.Length); } 

Explanation The pattern is a Character Class Subtraction. It starts with a standard character class like [\p{P}] and then adds a Subtraction Character Class like -[._] which says to remove the . and _. The subtraction is placed inside the [ ] after the standard class guts.