Which regex commands really work?

Maybe I am doing something fundamentally wrong with the config change report. It seems to me as if some of the commands documented in the help file do not work. For example take a typical router config.

something like [\w\d]{3} does not seem to match anything, I get the same config diff listing with or without this line in my exclusions. (yes it is enabled).

I have been going in circles trying to get my exclusions to work. What tipped me off that things were not working right was when I attempted to ignore the cisco cert blocks to no avail. I read the lengthy thread which suggested is use this;

Ignoring hex data:
^[ \t\r\n\v\f]*[A-Fa-f0-9][A-Fa-f0-9][A-Fa-f0-9][A-Fa-f0-9][A-Fa-f0-9][A-Fa-f0-9][A-Fa-f0-9][A-Fa-f0-9]

Chris LaPoint, Sr. Product Manager
Orion NCM, ipMonitor, LANsurveyor, Kiwi Syslog, Kiwi CatTools
SolarWinds
Austin, TX

The very fact that this is the suggested method seems to imply to me that some of the commands claimed in the help file don't really work or else surely a more elegant approach would have been suggested. Even [A-Z0-9] and nothing else, which I would expect to match and thus exclude nearly every line, does not change my diff listing.

Perhaps my installation is not working right. Some filters seem to work but not many. Is there some basic understood rule I am missing? Does the entire line have to match? Must I include the beggining of the line? Are spaces not allowed in a match? I just can't seem to understand what I am missing which renders most of my filters ineffective.

While the original thread on the certificate has a post from solarwinds stating that if the listed fix didn't work and you were on 5.1 to open a ticket, I have opened a ticker only to be told "...this is a feature that we make available to our customers but is not something that we can support due to the individualized nature of the issue. "

I am not sure why the forum thread said open a ticket if they are just going to respond by saying we can't help you.

Thanks for anyone who could shed some light on this and point me in the right direction.

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chris.lapoint

You have a valid gripe. I'll follow-up with dev and see if they can look into documenting exactly what is and isn't supported using the comparison criteria regex engine. This engine is different than the one used in the Policy Reporter application so it's certainly worth noting the differences.

I can't guarantee anything short-term as we're trying to wrap up 5.5, but we will look into this.

egoslayer1

Your reply was strikingly different from the one I received by opening up a ticket, which was that regex was a "microsoft product" and not supported by Solarwinds. (huh?)

I insisted that if the Solarwinds help documentation claims it behaves one way and it does not, something somewhere is wrong. I was told I could open a bug report.

This was from the support email; "this is a feature that we make available to our customers but is not something that we can support due to the individualized nature of the issue."

I explained that I was OK with support not walking me through crafting my own individualized regular expression, but that I would like to know what the options were. Trying to guess and figure out some undocumented syntax and command set through trial and error seems like an unappealing prospect.

Anyway, I appreciate your time and response.

chris.lapoint

I think there was obviously some confusion on the support side as what you were requesting. I think they heard RegEx and assumed you needed help writing regular expressions. Can you send me your case # and I'll follow up to ensure they're clear on this issue?

egoslayer1

case 95732

I can send you every email in the email exchange if you need it, though he also called me on the phone after the last email and I don't have that captured.