Free spacing and comment mode

.NET Regular Expressions allow you to embed comments and whitespace within pattern strings making them clearer to 
read (because of the whitespace), and easier to maintain (due to the modularity).

To use this feature you must turn on the RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace flag.  This can be achieved 
either by using the RegexOptions enumerated datatype or, via the (?x) mode modifier.  Therefore the following 
two examples are functionally identical:


    Regex re = new Regex( 
        @"           # This pattern matches Foo
            (?i)     # turn on insensitivity
                     # The Foo bit
            \b(Foo)\b "
        , RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace ) ;


    Regex re = new Regex( 
        @"(?x)
                    # This pattern matches Foo
            (?i)    # turn on insensitivity
                    # The Foo bit
            \b(Foo)\b "
        ) ;


Using IgnorePatternWhitespace option, comments can be embedded in one of two ways.  Firstly, a raw '#' 
character can be used to mark the beginning of a comment and the comment runs up to the first NEWLINE 
(\n) character that is encountered.  This can be easily achieved in C# with verbatim strings @"..." 
or in VB by appending newline characters within the string using Chr(10), vbCrLf or Environment.NewLine.  
Comments can also be declared using the (?#...) syntax.

The following 3 snippets demonstrate examples of each of these methods...


C# Verbatim Strings.


    using System;
    using System.Collections;
    using System.Text.RegularExpressions ;

    namespace Regex Snippets.Tests
    {
        public class CommentedCSharp
        {
            public static void Main()
            {
                Regex re = new Regex( 
                    @"           # This pattern matches Foo
                        (?i)     # turn on insensitivity
                                 # The Foo bit
                        \b(Foo)\b "
                , RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace ) ;
        
                for ( Match m = re.Match( "foo bar Foo" ) ; m.Success ; m = m.NextMatch() )
                    Console.WriteLine( m.Value + Environment.NewLine ) ;
                
                Console.ReadLine();
            }
        }    
    }



VB.NET using (?#...) syntax.


    Option Strict On

    Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions


    Namespace Regex Snippets.Tests

        Module CommentedVBOne

            Public Sub Main()

                ' Demonstrates a VB Whitespace pattern using the 
                '" (?#...) " & _
                ' syntax
                Dim re As New Regex( _
                        "                   (?# This pattern matches Foo ) " & _
                        "  (?i)             (?# turn on insensitivity ) " & _
                        "                   (?# The Foo bit ) " & _
                        "  \b(Foo)\b " _
                    , RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace)

                Dim m As Match = re.Match("foo bar foo")
                Dim s As String = ""

                While m.Success
                    s &= (m.Value & Environment.NewLine)
                    m = m.NextMatch()
                End While
                MessageBox.Show(s)
            End Sub

        End Module

    End Namespace



VB.NET using appended newlines.


Option Strict On

    Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions


    Namespace Regex Snippets.Tests

        Module CommentedVBTwo

            Public Sub Main()

                ' Demonstrates a VB Whitespace pattern using the 
                '" (?#...) " & _
                ' syntax
                Dim re As New Regex( _
                        "                 # This pattern matches Foo " & vbCrLf & _
                        "  (?i)           # turn on insensitivity " & vbCrLf & _
                        "                 # The Foo bit " & vbCrLf & _
                        "  \b(Foo)\b " _
                        , RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace)

                Dim m As Match = re.Match("foo bar foo")
                Dim s As String = ""

                While m.Success
                    s &= (m.Value & Environment.NewLine)
                    m = m.NextMatch()
                End While
                MessageBox.Show(s)
            End Sub

        End Module

    End Namespace