According to the Official Visual Studio's keyboard shotcuts pdf, you can press Ctrl + H on Windows and Linux, or ⌥⌘F on Mac to enable search and replace tool: If you mean to disable the code, you just have to put in search, and replace to ####. But if you want to use this regex instead, you may enable it in the icon: and use the regex: (.+?) and replace to: #### $1.

In visual basic, regular expression (regex) is a pattern and it is useful to parse and validate whether the given input text is matching the defined pattern (such as an email address) or not.

Generally, the key part to process the text with regular expressions is regular expression engine and it is represented by Regex class in visual basic. The Regex class is available with System.Text.RegularExpressions namespace.

• Afterwards, open Visual Studio Code and left-click on the Visual Studio Code interpreter shown in Visual Studio Code at the bottom left: Choose a virtual environment that pops up in a dropdown of the settings window, and you are done. Mind the answer of @RamiMa. Improve this answer.
• Enable regular expressions in the search box by clicking the Use Regular Expression. button (⌥⌘R (Windows, Linux Alt+R)) and then write a regular expression and use parenthesis to define groups. You can then reuse the content matched in each group by using $1, $2, etc. In the Replace field.
• In visual basic, regular expression (regex) is a pattern and it is useful to parse and validate whether the given input text is matching the defined pattern (such as an email address) or not. Generally, the key part to process the text with regular expressions is regular expression engine and it is represented by Regex class in visual basic. The Regex class is available with System.Text.
• Open the Regular Expression Tester without selecting any text in the code editor. You will get an empty window, where you can start creating your regular expression with options. When you select 'Insert', a statement like new Regex(@'s.as.', RegexOptions.IgnoreCase RegexOptions.Compiled) is generated. Select a string containing a regular expression including quotes - e.g. '(a.b)c' - and start the editor.

To validate the given input text using regular expressions, the Regex class will expect the following two items of information.

• The regular expression pattern to identity in the text.
• The input text to parse for the regular expression pattern.

Visual Basic Regular Expression Example

Following is the example of validating whether the given text is in proper email format or not using Regex class in visual basic.

Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions

Module Module1

Sub Main(ByVal args AsString())

Dim email AsString = 'support@tutlane.com'

Dim result = Regex.IsMatch(email, '^[w-.]+@([w-]+.)+[w-]{2,4}$')

Console.Write('Is valid: {0} ', result)

Console.ReadLine()

EndSub

EndModule

If you observe the above example, we are validating whether the input string (email) is in valid email format or not using Regex class IsMatch method by sending input string and the regular expression pattern to validate the input text.

When we execute the above code, we will get the result like as shown below.

This is how the Regex class is useful to validate the input string by sending regular expression patterns based on our requirements.

Visual Basic Regex Class Methods

In visual basic, the Regex class is having a different methods to perform various operations on input string. The following table lists various methods of Regex class in c#.

These Regex class methods are useful to validate, replace or split the string values by using regular expression patterns based on our requirements.

Visual Basic Regex Replace String Example

Following is the example of finding the substrings using regular expression patterns and replace with required values in visual basic.

Visual Studio Code Regular Expression Find

Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions

Module Module1

Visual Studio Code Find With Regular Expression

Sub Main(ByVal args AsString())

Dim str AsString = 'Hi,welcome@to-tut#lane.com'

Dim result AsString = Regex.Replace(str, '[^a-zA-Z0-9_]+', ' ')

Console.Write('{0} ', result)

Console.ReadLine()

EndSub

EndModule

If you observe the above example, we used Regx.Replace method to find and replace all the special characters in a string with space using regular expression patterns ('[^a-zA-Z0-9_]+').

Here, the regular expression pattern ('[^a-zA-Z0-9_]+') will try to match any single character that is not in the defined character group.

When we execute the above example, we will get the result as shown below.

Visual Basic Regex Find Duplicate Words Example

Generally, while writing the content we will do common mistakes like duplicating the words. By using a regular expression pattern, we can easily identify duplicate words.

Following is the example of identifying the duplicate words in a given string using Regex class methods in visual basic.

Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions

Module Module1

Sub Main(ByVal args AsString())

Dim str AsString = 'Welcome To to Tutlane.com. Learn c# in in easily'

Dim collection AsMatchCollection = Regex.Matches(str, 'b(w+?)s1b', RegexOptions.IgnoreCase)

ForEach m AsMatchIn collection

Console.WriteLine('{0} (duplicates '{1}') at position {2}', m.Value, m.Groups(1).Value, m.Index)

Next

Console.ReadLine()

EndSub

EndModule

Visual Studio Search Replace Regex

If you observe the above example, we used Regx.Matches method to find the duplicated words using regular expression pattern ('b(w+?)s1b').

Here, the regular expression pattern ('b(w+?)s1b') will perform a case-insensitive search and identify the duplicate words which exist side by side like (Toto or in in).

Visual Studio Regular Expression Search

When we execute the above example, we will get the result as shown below.

To to (duplicates 'To') at position 8

in in (duplicates 'in') at position 36

This is how we can use regular expressions in visual basic to parse and validate the given string based on our requirements.