item strings and match/sub/find

[Kayja]

If possible, could anyone please help me with patterns for .match .find or/and .sub as I just cannot understand patterns properly. What I basically want is a function that can rip the item name and item ID from a string regardless of what's in it. Such as:

"I wanted to go outside side today but instead I stayed in and got a new [Fancy Item of the Eagle] for my Warlock!"

"[Fancy Item of the Eagle]"

"You receive loot: [Fancy Item of the Eagle"]

"skdglksdhglkshdlgdshlgslkgsdg[Fancy Item of the Eagle]kdsflksdhg"

I just want, at the end, to have to variables (ie. iName and iID) which hold the item's name and item's ID.

I've tried lots of things, I managed to get a pattern working for "You receive loot: [Blah]" however the same pattern doesn't work for when I just link the item into the function rather than a full string with various words. I assumed it would have found it regardless of whatever was in the string I provided, since it gets parsed as Hitem:x:x:x:x and so forth, but for some reason I cannot get it to work.

What I have at the moment is:

function getItemID(item)
	local iName, iID = string.find(item, "item:(%a+):(%d+):(.*)")
	if ( iID == nil or iName == nil ) then
		return "Couldn't get it";
	else
		return iName.. " + "..iID;
	end
end

The return of his function is inside a DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage so it'll print out.

Help very much appreciated

[v6o]

ItemID, ItemName = strmatch(StringToMatchHere, "|Hitem:(%d+):%d+:%d+:%d+:%d+:%d+:%d+:%d+:%d+|h%[(.-)%]")

[Kayja]

Brilliant, thanks a bunch!