Using RegEx in Dictionary

Question

I'm new to C#, and it looks I need to use

Regex

with

Dictionary<string, Action>

The below working example with me, as testing of understanding the

Regex

in C#:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text.RegularExpressions;



public class Program

{





    public static void Main()

    {



        string sPattern = "word1|word2";

        string input = "word2";



        Match result = Regex.Match(input, sPattern);



        Console.WriteLine(result);

    }

}

I tried to include it in

Dictionary

as below, but failed:

var functions = new Dictionary<Match, Action>();

functions.Add(Regex.Match(string, sPattern), CountParameters);



Action action;

if (functions.TryGetValue("word1|word2", out action)) {action.Invoke(); }

It gave me

invalid expression string at Regex.Match(string, sPattern)

and

cannot convert string to Match at .TryGetValue("word1|word2")

UPDATE

I restructured my code like below, so I've no compiling error, but nothing is printed out as a result:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text.RegularExpressions;



public class Program

{





    public static void Main()

    {



        string sPattern1 = "word1|word2";

        string sPattern2 = "word3|word4";



        string input = "word2";



        var functions = new Dictionary<string, Action>();

        functions.Add("word1", CountParameters);

        functions.Add("word3", SomeOtherMethodName);



        Action action;

        if (functions.TryGetValue((Regex.Match(input, sPattern1)).ToString(), out action))

        {

            action.Invoke();

        }

        else

        {

            // No function with that name

        }



    }





    public static void CountParameters()

    {

    Console.WriteLine("Fn 1");

    }



    public static void SomeOtherMethodName()

    {

    Console.WriteLine("Fn 2");

    }

}

The above is working if string input = "word1"; but not working if string input = "word2"; while the RegEx should consider both word1 and word2 as the same based on the

string sPattern = "word1|word2";

UPDATE 2

In case it was not clear enough, the output of the above should be:

Executing
CountParameters
in case the input is word1 or word2, as the RegEx should consider them the same considering the
|
used in the pattern above.

Executing
SomeOtherMethodName
in case the input is word3 or word4, as the RegEx should consider them the same considering the
|
used in the pattern above.

and so on, in case I added more RegEx expression using the

OR

which is

|

Answer 1

I think you want something like this:

var input = "word2";
var functions = new Dictionary<Regex, Action>
{
    {new Regex("word1|word2"), CountParameters}
};
functions.FirstOrDefault(f => f.Key.IsMatch(input)).Value?.Invoke();

Using RegEx in Dictionary

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