RegEx within quotes

Question

Given a string of something like

$uninstallString = '"C:\Autodesk\Dynamo\Core\Uninstall\unins000.exe" /SILENT' 

I am trying to use a RegEx to capture the contents of the quotes as well as the remainder after the the space. This is close...

$regularExpression = '\"(?<executable>([^\"])\")\s{1,}(?<arguments>(.+))'

but I get the closing quote in the executable capture. My understanding is that [^\"] is going to capture anything that isn't a quote, allowing the escaped quote that is outside the named capture to work. But of course my understanding is wrong in this case. ;) I will never need nested quotes, or single quotes, or apostrophe's, so I am trying to keep it as simple as possible and still capture what I need.

Answer 1

Your executable group captures the trailing ", move the ) to the left:

$regularExpression = '"(?<executable>[^"]+)"\s+(?<arguments>.+)'

See the regex demo. Results:

Note I removed numbered capturing groups since they seem redundant for your scenario.

Details

• " - a " char
• (?<executable>[^"]+) - Group "executable": 1+ chars other than "
• " - a " char
• \s+ - 1+ whitespaces (note {1,} is equal to +)
• (?<arguments>.+) - Group "arguments": any 1+ chars other than newline.