Ethan,

   For this, I don't know that I would use that logic.  I would parse apart
the parts of the filename by non-alphanumeric characters and then look for
the word or letters in the remaining results.  Basically, you would use the
regular expression pattern "\W" (for non-alphanumeric characters) and then
call the Split method on the regular expression, passing your string.

   In the array of strings that is returned, look for Forward, Reverse, R
or F.

* Ethan Strauss wrote, On 5-7-2007 18:15:

There's a few error's in your regex. Let me try to explain:

_                                : Find a '_'
[Forward_|Reverse_|R$|F$]        : followed by any letter in the
                                   following group 'F','o','r','w'
                                   ... ...  's', 'e', '_', '|', 'R', '$'
                                   'F'
(?<Direction>)                   : Capture these in a named group called
                                   Direction

Of course this isn't what you wanted ;)

This should work better:

_(?<Direction>Forward_|Reverse_|R$|F$)

Just removing the [] would make things work. Now it reads:

_                                : Find a '_'
Forward_|Reverse_|R$|F$          : Find either "Forward_", "Reverse_",
                                   "R" followed by end of line,
                                   "F" followed by end of line
(?<Direction>)                   : Capture these in a named group called
                                   Direction

I present a course in Regular expressions and you've fallen into the
trap many of my students have before you. Be very sure what each kind of
brace, bracket etc means in which context.

() Group, Capture, Set options
[] Character set, any characters in there match
{} Quantifier
<> Naming of groups, look around

Jesse
Jesse