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Retrieving data using java matcher and pattern

I am trying to get an alphanumeric number from a string statement for eg. UN345690 .I am using the below code.
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("\\d+");
Please tell me what code should I use to get the desired result.

I am trying to get an alphanumeric number
Since you already specified the regex \d+ I assume you want to extract the ordinary number 345690 from UN345690. An alphanumeric number would also include letters; but it is unclear which letters would be allowed in that case and how you would differentiate between a regular word and an alphanumeric "number".
Use a Matcher to search for your pattern in a string, then retrieve the first match.
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("\\d+");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher("UN345690");
if (matcher.find()) {
String number = matcher.group();
// do something with the extracted number
}

Regex Pattern In Between Two Exact Strings

Hi I have this working code to detect a valid UUID pattern.
String pattern = "\\b[a-f0-9]{8}\\b-[a-f0-9]{4}-[a-f0-9]{4}-[a-f0-9]{4}-\\b[a-f0-9]{12}\\b";
Pattern r = Pattern.compile(pattern);
Matcher m = r.matcher(fileName);
This correctly detects strings like:
0101a8ef-db10-405a-a1d2-6bebdeb17625
I would like to add two exact strings on each side of this pattern like so:
FOLDER/0101a8ef-db10-405a-a1d2-6bebdeb17625.txt
Here is the code I am trying, but is not working:
String pattern = "FOLDER/\\b//[a-f0-9]{8}\\b-[a-f0-9]{4}-[a-f0-9]{4}-[a-f0-9]{4}-\\b[a-f0-9]{12}\\b.txt";
Pattern r = Pattern.compile(pattern);
Matcher m = r.matcher(uri.toString());

There is a // in the pattern that is not in the example string. Besides that, you can omit the word boundaries in between a character a-f0-9 and a - because it is implicit.
Note to escape the dot to match it literally, and you can add the word boundaries at the start and at the end to prevent partial matches.
You could update the pattern to
\\bFOLDER/[a-f0-9]{8}-[a-f0-9]{4}-[a-f0-9]{4}-[a-f0-9]{4}-[a-f0-9]{12}\\.txt\\b
See a regex demo.

Java Regular expressions for filename

I want to check the filenames sent to me against two patterns.
The first regular expression is ~*~, which should match names like ~263~. I put this in online regular expression testers and it matches. The code doesnt work though. Says no match
List<FTPFile> ret = new ArrayList<FTPFile>();
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("~*~");
Matcher matcher;
for (FTPFile file : files)
{
matcher = pattern.matcher(file.getName());
if(matcher.matches())
{
ret.add(file);
}
}
return ret;
Also the second pattern I need is ##* which should match strings like abc#ere#sss
Please tell me the proper patterns in java for this.

You need to define your pattern like,
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("~.*~");
~* in your regex ~*~ will repeat the first ~ zero or more times. So it won't match the number following the first ~. Because matches method tries to match the whole input string, this regex causes the match to fail. So you need to add .* inbetween to match strings like ~66~ or ~kjk~ . To match the strings which has only numbers present inbetween ~, you need to use ~\d+~

Try Regex:
\~.*\~
Instead:
~*~
Example:
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("\\~.*\\~");

Extract all occurrences of pattern K and check if string matches "K*" in 1 pass

For a given input string and a given pattern K, I want to extract every occurrence of K (or some part of it (using groups)) from the string and check that the entire string matches K* (as in it consists of 0 or more K's with no other characters).
But I would like to do this in a single pass using regular expressions. More specifically, I'm currently finding the pattern using Matcher.find, but this is not strictly required.
How would I do this?
I already found a solution (and posted an answer), but would like to know if there is specific regex or Matcher functionality that addresses / can address this issue, or simply if there are better / different ways of doing it. But, even if not, I still think it's an interesting question.
Example:
Pattern: <[0-9]> (a single digit in <>)
Valid input: <1><2><3>
Invalid inputs:
<1><2>a<3>
<1><2>3
Oh look, a flying monkey!
<1><2><3
Code to do it in 2 passes with matches:
boolean products(String products)
{
String regex = "(<[0-9]>)";
Pattern pAll = Pattern.compile(regex + "*");
if (!pAll.matcher(products).matches())
return false;
Pattern p = Pattern.compile(regex);
Matcher matcher = p.matcher(products);
while (matcher.find())
System.out.println(matcher.group());
return true;
}

1. Defining the problem
Since it is not clear what to output when the whole string does not match pattern K*, I will redefine the problem to make it clear what to output in such case.
Given any pattern K:
Check that the string has the pattern K*.
If the string has pattern K*, then split the string into non-overlapping tokens that matches K.
If the string only has prefix that matches pattern K*, then pick the prefix that is chosen by K*+1, and split the prefix into tokens that matches K.
1 I don't know if there is anyway to get the longest prefix that matches K. Of course, you can always remove the last character one by one and test against K* until it matches, but it is obviously inefficient.
Unless specify otherwise, whatever I write below will follow my problem description above. Note that the 3rd bullet point of the problem is to resolve the ambiguity on which prefix string to take.
2. Repeated capturing group in .NET
The problem above can be solved if we have the solution to the problem:
Given a pattern (K)*, which is a repeated capturing group, get the captured text for all the repetitions, instead of only the last repetition.
In the case where the string has pattern K*, by matching against ^(K)*$, we can get all tokens that match pattern K.
In the case where the string only has prefix that matches K*, by matching against ^(K)*, we can get all tokens that match pattern K.
This is the case in .NET regex, since it keeps all the captured text for a repeated capturing group.
However, since we are using Java, we don't have access to such feature.
3. Solution in Java
Checking that the string has the pattern K* can always be done with Matcher.matches()/String.matches(), since the engine will do full-blown backtracking on the input string to somehow "unify" K* with the input string. The hard thing is to split the input string into tokens that matches pattern K.
If K* is equivalent to K*+
If the pattern K has the property:
For all strings2, K* is equivalent to K*+, i.e. how the input string is split up into tokens that match pattern K is the same.
2 You can define this condition for only the input strings you are operating on, but ensuring this pre-condition is not easy. When you define it for all strings, you only need to analyze your regex to check whether the condition holds or not.
Then a one-pass solution that solves the problem can be constructed. You can repeatedly use Matcher.find() on the pattern \GK, and checks that the last match found is right at the end of the string. This is similar to your current solution, except that you do the boundary check with code.
The + after the quantifier * in K*+ makes the quantifier possessive. Possessive quantifier will prevent the engine from backtracking, which means each repetition is always the first possible match for the pattern K. We need this property so that the solution \GK has equivalent meaning, since it will also return the first possible match for the pattern K.
If K* is NOT equivalent to K*+
Without the property above, we need 2 passes to solve the problem. First pass to call Matcher.matches()/String.matches() on the pattern K*. On second pass:
If the string does not match pattern K*, we will repeatedly use Matcher.find() on the pattern \GK until no more match can be found. This can be done due to how we define which prefix string to take when the input string does not match pattern K*.
If the string matches pattern K*, repeatedly use Matcher.find() on the pattern \GK(?=K*$) is one solution. This will result in redundant work matching the rest of the input string, though.
Note that this solution is universally applicable for any K. In other words, it also applies for the case where K* is equivalent to K*+ (but we will use the better one-pass solution for that case instead).

Here is an additional answer to the already accepted one. Below is an example code snippet that only goes through the pattern once with m.find(), which is similar to your one pass solution, but will not parse non-matching lines.
import java.util.regex.*;
class test{
public static void main(String args[]){
String t = "<1><2><3>";
Pattern pat = Pattern.compile("(<\\d>)(?=(<\\d>)*$)(?<=^(<\\d>)*)");
Matcher m = pat.matcher(t);
while (m.find()) {
System.out.println("Matches!");
System.out.println(m.group());
}
}
}
The regex explained:
<\\d> --This is your k pattern as defined above
?= -- positive lookahead (check what is ahead of K)
<\\d>* -- Match k 0 or more times
$ -- End of line
?<= -- positive lookbehind (check what is behind K)
^ -- beginning of line
<\\d>* -- followed by 0 or more Ks
Regular expressions are beautiful things.
Edit: As pointed out to me by #nhahtdh, this is just an implemented version of the answer. In fact the implementation above can be improved with the knowledge in the answer.(<\\d>)(?=(<\\d>)*$)(?<=^(<\\d>)*) can be changed to \\G<\\d>(?=(<\\d>)*$).

Below is a one-pass solution using Matcher.start and Matcher.end.
boolean products(String products)
{
String regex = "<[0-9]>";
Pattern p = Pattern.compile(regex);
Matcher matcher = p.matcher(products);
int lastEnd = 0;
while (matcher.find())
{
if (lastEnd != matcher.start())
return false;
System.out.println(matcher.group());
lastEnd = matcher.end();
}
if (lastEnd != products.length())
return false;
return true;
}
The only disadvantage is that it will print out (or process) all values prior to finding invalid data.
For example, products("<1><2>a<3>"); will print out:
<1>
<2>
prior to throwing the exception (because up until there the string is valid).
Either having this happen or having to store all of them temporarily seems to be unavoidable.

String t = "<1><2><3>";
Pattern pat = Pattern.compile("(<\\d>)*");
Matcher m = pat.matcher(t);
if (m.matches()) {
//String[] tt = t.split("(?<=>)"); // Look behind on '>'
String[] tt = t.split("(?<=(<\\d>))"); // Look behind on K
}

how to encode String into Pattern and retrieve the String

Question closed because I misunderstood the situation. To show my stupidity though, I'll not remove what I wrote.
I'd like to encode a piece of string into Pattern, and get the string back.
I tried:
String s = buff.readLine();
Pattern p = new Pattern(s);
and use the following to retrieve my string
System.out.println(p.toString());
But it didn't work, the output is just the "package name#(some random things)... I tried Pattern p = Pattern.compile (s);
but I got an error from the compiler.

Well I just tried this:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("Hello");
System.out.println( p.toString() );
And it worked, printing out 'Hello'.
Are you importing the java.util.regex.Pattern package?

The javadoc for Pattern#toString() seems to indicate that the source of the complete regex is only returned since java 1.5. However, Pattern#pattern() does not have a since tag, so it is presumably available since the class was introduced (java 1.4). Try System.out.println(p.pattern());

You're using a regex Pattern object to store and retrieve a String. This makes no sense. A Pattern is not used for storing Strings. A Pattern is used for searching other strings. It's a regular expression engine. Let me give you an example of the use of a Pattern.
We really have 2 objects when using Regular Expressions in Java. Pattern, and Matcher.
Pattern = A Regular Expression.
Matcher = All of the Matches found when we apply the Pattern to a String.
Let me give you an example of Pattern and Matcher, we'll search for four digits, separated by a colon, like as in time, ie 12:42
long timeL;
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(".*([1234567890]{2}:[1234567890]{2}).*");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher("Match me! 12:42 Match me!");
if (matcher.matches()) {
String timeStr = matcher.group(1);
System.out.println("Just the time: "+timeStr);
System.out.println("The entire String: "+matcher.group(0));
String[] timeParts = timeStr.split("[:]");
int hours = Integer.parseInt(timeParts[0]);
int minutes = Integer.parseInt(timeParts[1]);
timeL = (hours*60*60*1000) + (minutes*60*1000);
System.out.println(timeL);
}
After we've applied the Pattern to the String, and gotten a Matcher, we ask if the Matcher actually has a Match or not. You'll notice that we then request group 1, which is the match in the parantheses in: .([1234567890]{2}:[1234567890]{2}).
group 0 would be the entire match, and would result in returning the String given.
So, I hope you understand why it's extremely weird to be using a Pattern to store a String.