We Keep Coding

Java regex : find the last occurrence of a string using Matcher.matches()

I have following input String:
abc.def.ghi.jkl.mno
Number of dot characters may vary in the input. I want to extract the word after the last . (i.e. mno in the above example). I am using the following regex and its working perfectly fine:
String input = "abc.def.ghi.jkl.mno";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("([^.]+$)");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(input);
if(matcher.find()) {
System.out.println(matcher.group(1));
}
However, I am using a third party library which does this matching (Kafka Connect to be precise) and I can just provide the regex pattern to it. The issue is, this library (whose code I can't change) uses matches() instead of find() to do the matching, and when I execute the same code with matches(), it doesn't work e.g.:
String input = "abc.def.ghi.jkl.mno";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("([^.]+$)");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(input);
if(matcher.matches()) {
System.out.println(matcher.group(1));
}
The above code doesn't print anything. As per the javadoc, matches() tries to match the whole String. Is there any way I can apply similar logic using matches() to extract mno from my input String?

You may use
".*\\.([^.]*)"
It matches
.*\. - any 0+ chars as many as possible up to the last . char
([^.]*) - Capturing group 1: any 0+ chars other than a dot.
See the regex demo and the Regulex graph:

To extract a word after the last . per your instruction you could do this without Pattern and Matcher as following:
String input = "abc.def.ghi.jkl.mno";
String getMe = input.substring(input.lastIndexOf(".")+1, input.length());
System.out.println(getMe);

This will work. Use .* at the beginning to enable it to match the entire input.
public static void main(String[] argv) {
String input = "abc.def.ghi.jkl.mno";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(".*([^.]{3})$");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(input);
if(matcher.matches()) {
System.out.println(matcher.group(0));
System.out.println(matcher.group(1));
}
}
abc.def.ghi.jkl.mno
mno
This is a better pattern if the dot really is anywhere: ".*\\.([^.]+)$"

Regex to find a word between $$ sign

I want regular expression to find a word between $$ sign only. It must start and end with $ sign. I have tried below expression
final String regex = "\\$\\w+\\$";
final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher("$abc$ cde$efg$hij pqr");
This should give me count as 1. But my regular expression also considering second occurrence of (cde$efg$hij) which it should not consider as it is not starting and ending with $$ sign.

You may use non-word boundaries:
final String regex = "\\B\\$\\w+\\$\\B";
The pattern will only match if the $abc$ is not preceded and followed with word chars. See the regex demo.
See Java demo:
String regex = "\\B\\$\\w+\\$\\B";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher("$abc$ cde$efg$hij pqr");
while (matcher.find()){
System.out.println(matcher.group(0));
} // => $abc$
Besides non-word boundaries, you may use whitespace boundaries if you only want to match in between whitespace chars or start/end of string:
String regex = "(?<!\\S)\\$\\w+\\$(?!\\S)";
Or, use unambiguous word boundaries (as I call them):
String regex = "(?<!\\w)\\$\\w+\\$(?!\\w)";
The (?<!\\w) negative lookbehind will fail the match if a word char is found immediately to the left of the current location, and the (?!\w) negative lookahead will fail the match if a word char is found immediately to the right of the current location.

The problem was extracting fields between dollar signs for me.
List<String> getFieldNames(#NotNull String str) {
final String regex = "\\$(\\w+)\\$";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(str);
List<String> fields = new ArrayList<>();
while (matcher.find()) {
fields.add(matcher.group(1));
}
return fields;
}
This will return list of words between dollar signs.

Java Regex group matches spaces

I have this regex and my output seems to be matching each single space but the capturing group is only alpha chars. I must be missing something.
String regexstring = new String("1234567 Mike Peloso ");
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("[A-Za-z]*");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(regexstring);
while(matcher.find())
{
System.out.println(Integer.toString(matcher.start()));
String someNumberStr = matcher.group();
System.out.println(someNumberStr);
}

There is no capturing group, but you need to use the + quantifier (meaning 1 or more times). The * quantifier matches the preceding element zero or more times and creates a disaster of output...
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("[A-Za-z]+");
And then print the match result:
while (matcher.find()) {
System.out.println(matcher.start());
System.out.println(matcher.group());
}
Working Demo

Find characters that match a regex's set

I have a regex w_p[a-z]
It would match input like w_pa, w_pb ... w_pz. I like to find which character exactly was matched i.e. a,b or z for the above input. Is this possible with java regex?

Yes, you need to capture:
final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("w_p([a-z])");
final Matcher m = pattern.matcher(input);
if (m.find())
// what is matched is in m.group(1)

Sure, use Regexpr groups. w_p([a-z]) defines a group for the character you are looking for.
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("w_p([a-z])");
Matcher matcher = p.matcher(input);
if (matcher.find()) {
String character = matcher.group(1)
}
matcher.group(0) contains all that was matched (w_pa or w_pb etc.)
matcher.group(1) contains what was found in the first () pair.
See the documentation for more information.

The REGEX will be something like this:
w_p([a-z])
So you will create a group from wich you can get the value

RegEX: how to match string which is not surrounded

I have a String "REC/LESS FEES/CODE/AU013423".
What could be the regEx expression to match "REC" and "AU013423" (anything that is not surrounded by slashes /)
I am using /^>*/, which works and matches the string within slash's i.e. using this I am able to find "/LESS FEES/CODE/", but I want to negate this to find reverse i.e. REC and AU013423.
Need help on this. Thanks

If you know that you're only looking for alphanumeric data you can use the regex ([A-Z0-9]+)/.*/([A-Z0-9]+) If this matches you will have the two groups which contain the first & final text strings.
This code prints RECAU013423
final String s = "REC/LESS FEES/CODE/AU013423";
final Pattern regex = Pattern.compile("([A-Z0-9]+)/.*/([A-Z0-9]+)", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
final Matcher matcher = regex.matcher(s);
if (matcher.matches()) {
System.out.println(matcher.group(1) + matcher.group(2));
}
You can tweak the regex groups as necessary to cover valid characters

Here's another option:
String s = "REC/LESS FEES/CODE/AU013423";
String[] results = s.split("/.*/");
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(results));
// [REC, AU013423]

^[^/]+|[^/]+$
matches anything that occurs before the first or after the last slash in the string (or the entire string if there is no slash present).
To iterate over all matches in a string in Java:
Pattern regex = Pattern.compile("^[^/]+|[^/]+$");
Matcher regexMatcher = regex.matcher(subjectString);
while (regexMatcher.find()) {
// matched text: regexMatcher.group()
// match start: regexMatcher.start()
// match end: regexMatcher.end()
}