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How To Match Repeating Sub-Patterns

Let's say I have a string:
String sentence = "My nieces are Cara:8 Sarah:9 Tara:10";
And I would like to find all their respective names and ages with the following pattern matcher:
String regex = "My\\s+nieces\\s+are((\\s+(\\S+):(\\d+))*)";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile;
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(sentence);
I understand something like
matcher.find(0); // resets "pointer"
String niece = matcher.group(2);
String nieceName = matcher.group(3);
String nieceAge = matcher.group(4);
would give me my last niece (" Tara:10", "Tara", "10",).
How would I collect all of my nieces instead of only the last, using only one regex/pattern?
I would like to avoid using split string.

Another idea is to use the \G anchor that matches where the previous match ended (or at start).
String regex = "(?:\\G(?!\\A)|My\\s+nieces\\s+are)\\s+(\\S+):(\\d+)";
If My\s+nieces\s+are matches
\G will chain matches from there
(?!\A) neg. lookahead prevents \G from matching at \A start
\s+(\S+):(\d+) using two capturing groups for extraction
See this demo at regex101 or a Java demo at tio.run
Matcher m = Pattern.compile(regex).matcher(sentence);
while (m.find()) {
System.out.println(m.group(1));
System.out.println(m.group(2));
}

You can't iterate over repeating groups, but you can match each group individually, calling find() in a loop to get the details of each one. If they need to be back-to-back, you can iteratively bound your matcher to the last index, like this:
Matcher matcher = Pattern.compile("My\\s+nieces\\s+are").matcher(sentence);
if (matcher.find()) {
int boundary = matcher.end();
matcher = Pattern.compile("^\\s+(\\S+):(\\d+)").matcher(sentence);
while (matcher.region(boundary, sentence.length()).find()) {
System.out.println(matcher.group());
System.out.println(matcher.group(1));
System.out.println(matcher.group(2));
boundary = matcher.end();
}
}

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})$");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(input);
if(matcher.matches()) {
System.out.println(matcher.group(0));
System.out.println(matcher.group(1));
}
}
abc.def.ghi.jkl.mno
mno
This is a better pattern if the dot really is anywhere: ".*\\.([^.]+)$"

Regular Expression to match a string that does not contain specific string in Java

I need a regular expression that matches a substring in string /*exa*/mple*/ ,
the matched string must be /*exa*/ not /*exa*/mple*/.
It also must not contain "*/" in it.
I have tried these regex:
"/\\*[.*&&[^*/]]\\*/" ,
"/\\*.*&&(?!^*/$)\\*/"
but im not able to get the exact solution.

I understand you want to pick out comments from a text.
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("/\\*.*?\\*/");
Matcher m = p.matcher("/*ex*a*/mple*/and/*more*/ther*/");
while (m.find()){
System.out.println(m.group());
}

you can try this:
/\*[^\*\/\*]+\*/ --> anything that is in between (including) "/*" and "*/"
Here is a sample:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("/\\*[^\\*\\/\\*]+\\*/");
Matcher m = p.matcher("/*exa*/mple*/");
while (m.find()){
System.out.println(m.group());
}
OUTPUT:
/*exa*/

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

Remove part of String following regex match in Java

I want to remove a part of a string following what matches my regex.
I am trying to make a TV show organization program and I want to cut off anything in the name following the season and episode marker in the form SXXEXX where X is a digit.
I grasped the regex model fairly easily to create "[Ss]\d\d[Ee]\d\d" which should match properly.
I want to use the Matcher method end() to get the last index in the string of the match but it does not seem to be working as I think it should.
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("[Ss]\\d\\d[Ee]\\d\\d");
Matcher m = p.matcher(name);
if(m.matches())
return name.substring(0, m.end());
If someone could tell me why this doesn't work and suggest a proper way to do it, that would be great. Thanks.

matches() tries to match the whole string again the pattern. If you want to find your pattern within a string, use find(), find() will search for the next match in the string.
Your code could be quite the same:
if(m.find())
return name.substring(0, m.end());

matches matches the entire string, try find()
You could capture the name as well:
String name = "a movie S01E02 with some stuff";
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(.*[Ss]\\d\\d[Ee]\\d\\d)");
Matcher m = p.matcher(name);
if (m.find())
System.out.println(m.group());
else
System.out.println("No match");
Will capture and print:
a movie S01E02

This should work
.*[Ss]\d\d[Ee]\d\d
In java (I'm rusty) this will be
String ResultString = null;
Pattern regex = Pattern.compile(".*[Ss]\\d\\d[Ee]\\d\\d");
Matcher regexMatcher = regex.matcher("Title S11E11Blah");
if (regexMatcher.find()) {
ResultString = regexMatcher.group();
}
Hope this helps