I have text that looks like something like this:
1. Must have experience in Java 2. Team leader...
I want to render this in HTML as an ordered list. Now adding the </li> tag to the end is simple enough:
s = replace(s, ". ", "</li>");
But how do I go about replacing the 1., 2. etc with <li>?
I have the regular expression \d*\.$ which matches a number with a period, but the problem is is that is a substring so matching 1. Must have experience in Java 2. Team leader with \d*\.$ returns false.
Code
See regex in use here
\d+\.\s+(.*?)\s*(?=\d+\.\s+|$)
Replace
<li>$1</li>\n
Results
Input
Must have experience in Java 2. Team leader...
Output
<li>Must have experience in Java</li>
<li>Team leader...</li>
Explanation
\d+ Match one or more digits
\. Match the dot character . literally
\s+ Match one or more whitespace characters
(.*?) Capture any character any number of times, but as few as possible, into capture group 1
\s* Match any number of whitespace characters
(?=\d+\.\s+|$) Positive lookahead ensuring either of the following doesn't match
\d+\.\s+
\d+ Match one or more digits
\. Match the dot character . literally
\s+ Match one or more whitespace characters
$ Assert position at the end of the line
But how do I go about replacing the 1., 2. etc with <li>?
You can use String#replaceAll which can allow regex instead of replace :
s = s.replaceAll("\\d+\\.\\s", "</li>");
Note
You don't need to use $ in the end of your regex.
You have to escape dot . because it's mean any character in regex
You can use \s for one space or \s* for zero or more spaces or \s+ for one or more space
We want
<ol>
<li>one</li>
<li>two<li>
</ol>
This can be done as:
s = s.replaceAll("(?s)(\\d+\\.)\\s+(.*\\.)\\s*", "<li>$2</li></ol>");
s = s.replaceFirst("<li>", "<ol><li>");
s = s.replaceAll("(?s)</li></ol><li>", "</li>\n<li>");
The trick is to first add </li></ol> with a spurious </ol> that should only remain after the last list item.
(?s) is the DOTALL notation, causing . to also match line breaks.
In case of more than one numbered list this will not do. Also it assumes one single sentence per list item.
Related
I need to check if a String matches this specific pattern.
The pattern is:
(Numbers)(all characters allowed)(numbers)
and the numbers may have a comma ("." or ",")!
For instance the input could be 500+400 or 400,021+213.443.
I tried Pattern.matches("[0-9],?.?+[0-9],?.?+", theequation2), but it didn't work!
I know that I have to use the method Pattern.match(regex, String), but I am not being able to find the correct regex.
Dealing with numbers can be difficult. This approach will deal with your examples, but check carefully. I also didn't do "all characters" in the middle grouping, as "all" would include numbers, so instead I assumed that finding the next non-number would be appropriate.
This Java regex handles the requirements:
"((-?)[\\d,.]+)([^\\d-]+)((-?)[\\d,.]+)"
However, there is a potential issue in the above. Consider the following:
300 - -200. The foregoing won't match that case.
Now, based upon the examples, I think the point is that one should have a valid operator. The number of math operations is likely limited, so I would whitelist the operators in the middle. Thus, something like:
"((-?)[\\d,.]+)([\\s]*[*/+-]+[\\s]*)((-?)[\\d,.]+)"
Would, I think, be more appropriate. The [*/+-] can be expanded for the power operator ^ or whatever. Now, if one is going to start adding words (such as mod) in the equation, then the expression will need to be modified.
You can see this regular expression here
In your regex you have to escape the dot \. to match it literally and escape the \+ or else it would make the ? a possessive quantifier. To match 1+ digits you have to use a quantifier [0-9]+
For your example data, you could match 1+ digits followed by an optional part which matches either a dot or a comma at the start and at the end. If you want to match 1 time any character you could use a dot.
Instead of using a dot, you could also use for example a character class [-+*] to list some operators or list what you would allow to match. If this should be the only match, you could use anchors to assert the start ^ and the end $ of the string.
\d+(?:[.,]\d+)?.\d+(?:[.,]\d+)?
In Java:
String regex = "\\d+(?:[.,]\\d+)?.\\d+(?:[.,]\\d+)?";
Regex demo
That would match:
\d+(?:[.,]\d+)? 1+ digits followed by an optional part that matches . or , followed by 1+ digits
. Match any character (Use .+) to repeat 1+ times
Same as the first pattern
I am trying to write a regular expression to select all characters between underscores. I end up with _([^_]+)_ but it does not match all the groups,
String : abc_bca_vag_hag_bag
output : bca vag hag
can someone help with this?
I used split function and select every elements except first one and last one:
st = 'abc_bca_vag_hag_bag'
lis = st.split('_')[1:-1]
# output ['bca', 'vag', 'hag']
Your regex will match the underscores, and things that are matched once will not be matched again. So after matching _bca_, it does not see that the last underscore in _bca_ is actually the same underscore that is before vag. It thinks that vag is not preceded by an underscore because it has already matched the underscore preceding it in the previous match.
You need to use lookaheads and lookbehinds:
(?<=_)[^_]+(?=_)
These will not match the underscore. They will only "look" and see whether there is an underscore.
Demo
For example I have text like below :
case1:
(1) Hello, how are you?
case2:
Hi. (1) How're you doing?
Now I want to match the text which starts with (\d+).
I have tried the following regex but nothing is working.
^[\(\d+\)], ^\(\d+\).
[] are used to match any of the things you specify inside the brackets, and are to be followed by a quantifier.
The second regexp will work: ^\(\d+\), so check your code.
Check also so there's no space in front of the first parenthesis, or add \s* in front.
EDIT: Also, java can be tricky with escapes depending on if the regexp you type is directly translated to a regexp or is first a string literal. You may need to double escape your escapes.
In Java you have to escape parenthesis, so "\\(\\d+\\)" should match (1) in case one and two. Adding ^ as you did "^\\(\\d+\\)" will match only case1.
You have to use double back slashes within java string. Consider this
"\n" give you [line break]
"\\n" give you [backslash][n]
If you are going to downvote my post, at least comment to tell me WHY it's not useful.
I believe Java's Regex Engine supports Positive Lookbehind, in which case you can use the following regex:
(?<=[(][0-9]{1,9999}[)]\s?)\b.*$
Which matches:
The literal text (
Any digit [0-9], between 1 and 9999 times {1,9999}
The literal text )
A space, between 0 and 1 times \s?
A word boundary \b
Any character, between 0 and unlimited times .*
The end of a string $
In a previous question that i asked,
String split in java using advanced regex
someone gave me a fantastic answer to my problem (as described on the above link)
but i never managed to fully understand it. Can somebody help me? The regex i was given
is this"
"(?s)(?=(([^\"]+\"){2})*[^\"]*$)\\s+"
I can understand some basic things, but there are parts of this regex that even after
thoroughly searching google i could not find, like the question mark preceding the s in the
start, or how exactly the second parenthesis works with the question mark and the equation in the start. Is it possible also to expand it and make it able to work with other types of quotes, like “ ” for example?
Any help is really appreciated.
"(?s)(?=(([^\"]+\"){2})*[^\"]*$)\\s+" Explained;
(?s) # This equals a DOTALL flag in regex, which allows the `.` to match newline characters. As far as I can tell from your regex, it's superfluous.
(?= # Start of a lookahead, it checks ahead in the regex, but matches "an empty string"(1) read more about that [here][1]
(([^\"]+\"){2})* # This group is repeated any amount of times, including none. I will explain the content in more detail.
([^\"]+\") # This is looking for one or more occurrences of a character that is not `"`, followed by a `"`.
{2} # Repeat 2 times. When combined with the previous group, it it looking for 2 occurrences of text followed by a quote. In effect, this means it is looking for an even amount of `"`.
[^\"]* # Matches any character which is not a double quote sign. This means literally _any_ character, including newline characters without enabling the DOTALL flag
$ # The lookahead actually inspects until end of string.
) # End of lookahead
\\s+ # Matches one or more whitespace characters, including spaces, tabs and so on
That complicated group up there that is repeated twice will match in whitespaces in this string which is not in between two ";
text that has a "string in it".
When used with String.split, splitting the string into; [text, that, has, a, "string in it".]
It will only match if there are an even number of ", so the following will match on all spaces;
text that nearly has a "string in it.
Splitting the string into [text, that, nearly, has, a, "string, in, it.]
(1) When I say that a capture group matches "an empty string", I mean that it actually captures nothing, it only looks ahead from the point in the regex you are, and check a condition, nothing is actually captured. The actual capture is done by \\s+ which follows the lookahead.
The (?s) part is an embedded flag expression, enabling the DOTALL mode, which means the following:
In dotall mode, the expression . matches any character, including a line terminator. By default this expression does not match line terminators.
The (?=expr) is a look-ahead expression. This means that the regex looks to match expr, but then moves back to the same point before continuing with the rest of the evaluation.
In this case, it means that the regex matches any \\s+ occurence, that is followed by any even number of ", then followed by non-" until the end ($). In other words, it checks that there are an even number of " ahead.
It can definitely be expanded to other quotes too. The only problem is the ([^\"]+\"){2} part, that will probably have to be made to use a back-reference (\n) instead of the {2}.
This is fairly simple..
Concept
It split's at \s+ whenever there are even number of " ahead.
For example:
Hello hi "Hi World"
^ ^ ^
| | |->will not split here since there are odd number of "
----
|
|->split here because there are even number of " ahead
Grammar
\s matches a \n or \r or space or \t
+ is a quantifier which matches previous character or group 1 to many times
[^\"] would match anything except "
(x){2} would match x 2 times
a(?=bc) would match if a is followed by bc
(?=ab)a would first check for ab from current position and then return back to its position.It then matches a.(?=ab)c would not match c
With (?s)(singleline mode) . would match newlines.So,In this case no need of (?s) since there are no .
I would use
\s+(?=([^"]*"[^"]*")*[^"]*$)
Any Regex masters out there? I need a regular expression in Java that matches:
"RANDOMSTUFF SPECIFICWORD"
Including the quotation marks.
Thus I need
to match the first quote,
RANDOMSTUFF (any number of words with spaces between preceding SPECIFICWORD)
SPECIFICWORD (a specific word which I won't specify here.)
and the ending quote.
I don't want to match things such as:
RANDOMSTUFF SPECIFICWORD
"RANDOMSTUFF NOTTHESPECIFICWORD"
"RANDOMSTUFF SPECIFICWORD MORERANDOMSTUFF"
\".*\sSPECIFICWORD\"
If you don't want to allow quotes in between, use \"[^"]*\sSPECIFICWORD\"
. matches any character
* says 0 or more of the preceding character (in this case, 0 or more of any characters)
\s matches any whitespace character
SPECIFICWORD will be treated as a string literal, assuming there are no special characters (escape them if there are)
\" matches the quote
[^"] means any character except a quote (the ^ is what makes it 'except')
Also, this link could be useful. Regex's are powerful expressions and are applicable across virtually any language, so it would be a good thing to become comfortable with using them.
EDIT:
As several other posters have pointed out, adding ^ to the beginning and $ to the end will only match if the entire line matches.
^ matches the beginning of the line
$ matches the end of the line
^.*\s+SPECIFICWORD"$
'^' matches 'from the start of the line'
.* matches anything
\s+ matches 'any amount of whitespace, but at least some'
SPECIFICWORD" is a string literal
$ means 'this is the end of the line'
Note that ^ and $ are not always 'line'-based; most languages allow you to specify a 'multiline' mode that would cause them to match 'start of the string/end of the string' instead of one line at a time.
Will this string be matched as a line by line basis or will it be found within the text? If so, you can add anchors to ensure that it matches the string.
^(\".*\sSPECIFICWPRD\")$
Saying, at the start of the line, look for a double quote followed by zero or more random characters followed by a single whitespace, followed by the specific word, followed by a double quote at the end of the string.
Optionally, there are excellent tools for designing regex patterns and seeing what they match in real time.
Here are a couple of examples:
http://gskinner.com/RegExr/
http://regex101.com/r/zC3fM1
Try:
\"[\w\s]*SPECIFICWORD\"
Works like this:
\" matches opening quote
[\w\s]* matches zero or more of the characters from the following sets:
[a-zA-Z_0-9] (\w part)
[ \t\n\x0B\f\r] (\s part)
SPECIFICWORD matches the SPECIFICWORD
\" matches closing quote