Regex.Replace Method (String, String, String)

Replaces all occurrences of matches defined by the regular expression with a replacement string, starting at the first character in the input string.

[Visual Basic]
Overloads Public Shared Function Replace( _
   ByVal input As String, _
   ByVal pattern As String, _
   ByVal replacement As String _
) As String
[C#]
public static string Replace(
 string input,
 string pattern,
 string replacement
);
[C++]
public: static String* Replace(
 String* input,
 String* pattern,
 String* replacement
);
[JScript]
public static function Replace(
   input : String,
 pattern : String,
 replacement : String
) : String;

Parameters

input

The string to modify.

pattern

The regular expression pattern to match.

replacement

The replacement string.

Return Value

The modified character string.

Remarks

Substitutions are allowed only within a replacement pattern. For similar functionality within a regular expression, use a backreference such as\1.

Character escapes and substitutions are the only special constructs recognized in a replacement pattern. All other syntactic constructs are allowed in regular expressions only and not recognized in replacement patterns. For example, the replacement pattern a*${test}b inserts the string "a*" followed by the substring matched by the "test" capturing group, if any, followed by the string "b". The * character is not recognized as a metacharacter within a replacement pattern. Similarly, $-patterns are not recognized within a regular expression matching pattern. Within a regular expression, $ denotes the end of the string. Other examples are: $123 substitutes the last substring matched by group number 123 (decimal), and ${name) substitutes the last substring matched by a (?<name>) group.

The static Replace methods are equivalent to constructing a Regex object with the specified regular expression pattern and calling the instance method Replace. The static methods are provided to allow an isolated, single use of a regular expression without explicitly creating a Regex object.

Requirements

Platforms: Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows Server 2003 family, .NET Compact Framework

See Also

Regex Class | Regex Members | System.Text.RegularExpressions Namespace | Regex.Replace Overload List