Regex::Matches Method (String^)

Parameters

input

Type: System::String^

The string to search for a match.

Return Value

A collection of the Match objects found by the search. If no matches are found, the method returns an empty collection object.

The Matches(String^) method is similar to the Match(String^) method, except that it returns information about all the matches found in the input string, instead of a single match. It is equivalent to the following code:

The collection includes only matches and terminates at the first non-match.

The regular expression pattern for which the Matches(String^) method searches is defined by the call to one of the Regex class constructors. For more information about the elements that can form a regular expression pattern, see Regular Expression Language - Quick Reference.

The Matches method uses lazy evaluation to populate the returned MatchCollection object. Accessing members of this collection such as MatchCollection::Count and MatchCollection::CopyTo causes the collection to be populated immediately. To take advantage of lazy evaluation, you should iterate the collection by using a construct such as foreach in C# and ForEach…Next in Visual Basic.

Because of its lazy evaluation, calling the Matches(String^) method does not throw a RegexMatchTimeoutException exception. However, the exception is thrown when an operation is performed on the MatchCollection object returned by this method, if the MatchTimeout property is not Regex::InfiniteMatchTimeout and a matching operation exceeds the time-out interval.