Question: I've found a lot of examples of how to **check** something using regex, or how to split text using regular expressions.

But how can I extract words out of a string ?

Example:

```
aaaa 12312 <asdad> 12334 </asdad>

```

Lets say I have something like this, and I want to extract all the numbers [0-9]\* and put them in a list.

Or if I have 2 different kind of elements:

```
aaaa 1234 ...... 1234 ::::: asgsgd

```

And I want to `choose digits that come after .....` and `words that come after ::::::`

Can I extract these strings in a single regex ?

Answer: 
In the general case, you can do this using capturing parentheses:

```
string input = "aaaa 1234 ...... 1234 ::::: asgsgd";
string regex = @"\.\.\.\. (\d+) ::::: (\w+)";
Match m = Regex.Match(input, regex);

if (m.Success) {
    int numberAfterDots = int.Parse(m.Groups[1].Value);
    string wordAfterColons = m.Groups[2].Value;
    // ... Do something with these values
}

```

But the first part you asked (extract all the numbers) is a bit easier:

```
string input = "aaaa 1234 ...... 1234 ::::: asgsgd";
var numbers = Regex.Matches(input, @"\d+")
                   .Cast<Match>()
                   .Select(m => int.Parse(m.Value))
                   .ToList();

```

Now `numbers` will be a list of integers.
```
    Regex phoneregex = new Regex("[0-9][0-9][0-9]\-[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]");
    String unicornCanneryDirectory = "unicorn cannery 483-8627 cha..."
    String numbersToCall = "";

    //the second argument is where to begin within the match, 
    //we probably want 0, the first character
    Match matchIterator = phoneregex.Match(unicornCanneryDirectory , 0);
    //Success tells us if matchIterator has another match or not
    while( matchIterator.Sucess){
      String aResult = matchIterator.Result();
      //we could manipulate our match now but I'm going to concatenate them all for later
      numbersToCall  += aResult + " ";

      matchIterator = matchIterator.NextMatch();
    }

    // use my concatenated matches now
    String message = "Unicorn rights activists demand more sparkles in the unicorn canneries under the new law...";
    phoneDialer.MassCallWithAutomatedMessage(aResult, message );

```

<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.text.regularexpressions.match.nextmatch.aspx>