Stash regex query

Question

I'm using Stash to set and retrieve a list based on channel entries. I want to filter the list by a 'column' of data defined by a pipe-delimited set of values.

I'm having trouble though getting the regex to work. So, for example I have the following data in my list:

4|4|4|4|2|2
2|2|2|2
9|9|9|2|2
2|2|2
9|9|9|2
2|6|3|4|5|9|6|7|2

I'm using the following regex:

{exp:stash:get_list name="paper" parse="inward" match="#^((.*2).*)$#" against="parents"}

But only two of the above are being returned in the list:

4|4|4|4|2|2
2|6|3|4|5|9|6|7|2

If I test this pattern on Regex Tester it returns all results as expected.

Any thoughts on why this might be happening or how better to achieve this (so returns all data with 2)? I've tried simpler regex patterns (eg #2# or #2+#) with no success.

Thanks

Cole

Answer 1

Surrounding each of the values with a separator, including the start and end of the index makes matching simple and ensures you match a '2' and not '22' or '212' (for example). I tend to use @ or / rather than | so that I don't need to escape the pipe in the regex.

@4@4@4@4@2@2@
@9@9@9@2@2@
etc

Now you can easily match a specific number with:

{exp:stash:get_list name="paper" match="#@2@#" against="parents"}

Or either of two numbers:

{exp:stash:get_list name="paper" match="#@2@|@4@#" against="parents"}

Or require two numbers:

{exp:stash:get_list name="paper" match="#^(?=.*@2@)(?=.*@4@)#" against="parents"}

More on filtering with a custom index column here: https://github.com/croxton/Stash/wiki/Filtering%20lists%20with%20match%20against