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Regular Expression in Java. Splitting a string using pattern and matcher

I am trying to get all the matching groups in my string.
My regular expression is "(?<!')/|/(?!')". I am trying to split the string using regular expression pattern and matcher. string needs to be split by using /, but '/'(surrounded by ') this needs to be skipped. for example "One/Two/Three'/'3/Four" needs to be split as ["One", "Two", "Three'/'3", "Four"] but not using .split method.
I am currently the below
// String to be scanned to find the pattern.
String line = "Test1/Test2/Tt";
String pattern = "(?<!')/|/(?!')";
// Create a Pattern object
Pattern r = Pattern.compile(pattern);
// Now create matcher object.
Matcher m = r.matcher(line);
if (m.matches()) {
System.out.println("Found value: " + m.group(0) );
} else {
System.out.println("NO MATCH");
}
But it always saying "NO MATCH". where i am doing wrong? and how to fix that?
Thanks in advance

To get the matches without using split, you might use
[^'/]+(?:'/'[^'/]*)*
Explanation
[^'/]+ Match 1+ times any char except ' or /
(?: Non capture group
'/'[^'/]* Match '/' followed by optionally matching any char except ' or /
)* Close group and optionally repeat it
Regex demo | Java demo
String regex = "[^'/]+(?:'/'[^'/]*)*";
String string = "One/Two/Three'/'3/Four";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string);
while (matcher.find()) {
System.out.println(matcher.group(0));
}
Output
One
Two
Three'/'3
Four
Edit
If you do not want to split don't you might also use a pattern to not match / but only when surrounded by single quotes
[^/]+(?:(?<=')/(?=')[^/]*)*
Regex demo

Try this.
String line = "One/Two/Three'/'3/Four";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("('/'|[^/])+");
Matcher m = pattern.matcher(line);
while (m.find())
System.out.println(m.group());
output:
One
Two
Three'/'3
Four

Here is simple pattern matching all desired /, so you can split by them:
(?<=[^'])\/(?=')|(?<=')\/(?=[^'])|(?<=[^'])\/(?=[^'])
The logic is as follows: we have 4 cases:
/ is sorrounded by ', i.e. `'/'
/ is preceeded by ', i.e. '/
/ is followed by ', i.e. /'
/ is sorrounded by characters other than '
You want only exclude 1. case. So we need to write regex for three cases, so I have written three similair regexes and used alternation.
Explanation of the first part (other two are analogical):
(?<=[^']) - positiva lookbehind, assert what preceeds is differnt frim ' (negated character class [^']
\/ - match / literally
(?=') - positiva lookahead, assert what follows is '\
Demo with some more edge cases

Try something like this:
String line = "One/Two/Three'/'3/Four";
String pattern = "([^/]+'/'\d)|[^/]+";
Pattern r = Pattern.compile(pattern);
Matcher m = r.matcher(line);
boolean found = false;
while(m.find()) {
System.out.println("Found value: " + m.group() );
found = true;
}
if(!found) {
System.out.println("NO MATCH");
}
Output:
Found value: One
Found value: Two
Found value: Three'/'3
Found value: Four

pattern matching to detect special characters in a word

I am trying to identify any special characters ('?', '.', ',') at the end of a string in java. Here is what I wrote:
public static void main(String[] args) {
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("{.,?}$");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher("Sure?");
System.out.println("Input String matches regex - "+matcher.matches());
}
This returns a false when it's expected to be true. Please suggest.

Use "sure?".matches(".*[.,?]").
String#matches(...) anto-anchors the regex with ^ and $, no need to add them manually.

This is your code:
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("{.,?}$");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher("Sure?");
System.out.println("Input String matches regex - "+matcher.matches());
You have 2 problems:
You're using { and } instead of character class [ and ]
You're using Matcher#matches() instead of Matcher#find. matches method matches the full input line while find performs a search anywhere in the string.
Change your code to:
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("[.,?]$");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher("Sure?");
System.out.println("Input String matches regex - " + matcher.find());

Try this
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(".*[.,?]");
...

regex to remove round brackets from a string

i have a string
String s="[[Identity (philosophy)|unique identity]]";
i need to parse it to .
s1 = Identity_philosphy
s2= unique identity
I have tried following code
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(\\[\\[)(\\w*?\\s\\(\\w*?\\))(\\s*[|])\\w*(\\]\\])");
Matcher m = p.matcher(s);
while(m.find())
{
....
}
But the pattern is not matching..
Please Help
Thanks

Use
String s="[[Identity (philosophy)|unique identity]]";
String[] results = s.replaceAll("^\\Q[[\\E|]]$", "") // Delete double brackets at start/end
.replaceAll("\\s+\\(([^()]*)\\)","_$1") // Replace spaces and parens with _
.split("\\Q|\\E"); // Split with pipe
System.out.println(results[0]);
System.out.println(results[1]);
Output:
Identity_philosophy
unique identity

You may use
String s="[[Identity (philosophy)|unique identity]]";
Matcher m = Pattern.compile("\\[{2}(.*)\\|(.*)]]").matcher(s);
if (m.matches()) {
System.out.println(m.group(1).replaceAll("\\W+", " ").trim().replace(" ", "_")); // // => Identity_philosphy
System.out.println(m.group(2).trim()); // => unique identity
}
See a Java demo.
Details
The "\\[{2}(.*)\\|(.*)]]" with matches() is parsed as a ^\[{2}(.*)\|(.*)]]\z pattern that matches a string that starts with [[, then matches and captures any 0 or more chars other than line break chars as many as possible into Group 1, then matches a |, then matches and capture any 0 or more chars other than line break chars as many as possible into Group 2 and then matches ]]. See the regex demo.
The contents in Group 2 can be trimmed from whitespace and used as is, but Group 1 should be preprocessed by replacing all 1+ non-word character chhunks with a space (.replaceAll("\\W+", " ")), then trimming the result (.trim()) and replacing all spaces with _ (.replace(" ", "_")) as the final touch.

Find words in string surrounded by "[" and "]":

I need help with a simple task in java. I have the following sentence:
Where Are You [Employee Name]?
your have a [Shift] shift..
I need to extract the strings that are surrounded by [ and ] signs.
I was thinking of using the split method with " " parameter and then find the single words, but I have a problem using that if the phrase I'm looking for contains: " ". using indexOf might be an option as well, only I don't know what is the indication that I have reached the end of the String.
What is the best way to perform this task?
Any help would be appreciated.

Try with regex \[(.*?)\] to match the words.
\[: escaped [ for literal match as it is a meta char.
(.*?) : match everything in a non-greedy way.
Sample code:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\[(.*?)\\]");
Matcher m = p.matcher("Where Are You [Employee Name]? your have a [Shift] shift.");
while(m.find()) {
System.out.println(m.group());
}

Here you go Java regular expression that extract text between two brackets including white spaces:
import java.util.regex.*;
class Main
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
String txt="[ Employee Name ]";
String re1=".*?";
String re2="( )";
String re3="((?:[a-z][a-z]+))"; // Word 1
String re4="( )";
String re5="((?:[a-z][a-z]+))"; // Word 2
String re6="( )";
Pattern p = Pattern.compile(re1+re2+re3+re4+re5+re6,Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.DOTALL);
Matcher m = p.matcher(txt);
if (m.find())
{
String ws1=m.group(1);
String word1=m.group(2);
String ws2=m.group(3);
String word2=m.group(4);
String ws3=m.group(5);
System.out.print("("+ws1.toString()+")"+"("+word1.toString()+")"+"("+ws2.toString()+")"+"("+word2.toString()+")"+"("+ws3.toString()+")"+"\n");
}
}
}
if you want to ignore white space remove "( )";

This is a Scanner base solution
Scanner sc = new Scanner("Where Are You [Employee Name]? your have a [Shift] shift..");
for (String s; (s = sc.findWithinHorizon("(?<=\\[).*?(?=\\])", 0)) != null;) {
System.out.println(s);
}
output
Employee Name
Shift

Use a StringBuilder (I assume you don't need synchronization).
As you suggested, indexOf() using your square bracket delimiters will give you a starting index and an ending index. use substring(startIndex + 1, endIndex - 1) to get exactly the string you want.
I'm not sure what you meant by the end of the String, but indexOf("[") is the start and indexOf("]") is the end.

That's pretty much the use case for a regular expression.
Try "(\\[[\\w ]*\\])" as your expression.
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(\\[[\\w ]*\\])");
Matcher m = p.matcher("Where Are You [Employee Name]? your have a [Shift] shift..");
if (m.find()) {
String found = m.group();
}
What does this expression do?
First it defines a group (...)
Then it defines the starting point for that group. \[ matches [ since [ itself is a 'keyword' for regular expressions it has to be masked by \ which is reserved in Java Strings and has to be masked by another \
Then it defines the body of the group [\w ]*... here the regexpression [] are used along with \w (meaning \w, meaning any letter, number or undescore) and a blank, meaning blank. The * means zero or more of the previous group.
Then it defines the endpoint of the group \]
and closes the group )

Punctuation Regex in Java

First, i'm read the documentation as follow
http://download.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html
And i want find any punctuation character EXCEPT #',& but i don't quite understand.
Here is :
public static void main( String[] args )
{
// String to be scanned to find the pattern.
String value = "#`~!#$%^";
String pattern = "\\p{Punct}[^#',&]";
// Create a Pattern object
Pattern r = Pattern.compile(pattern, Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
// Now create matcher object.
Matcher m = r.matcher(value);
if (m.find()) {
System.out.println("Found value: " + m.groupCount());
} else {
System.out.println("NO MATCH");
}
}
Result is NO MATCH.
Is there any mismatch ?
Thanks
MRizq

You're matching two characters, not one. Using a (negative) lookahead should solve the task:
(?![#',&])\\p{Punct}

You may use character subtraction here:
String pat = "[\\p{Punct}&&[^#',&]]";
The whole pattern represents a character class, [...], that contains a \p{Punct} POSIX character class, the && intersection operator and [^...] negated character class.
A Unicode modifier might be necessary if you plan to also match all Unicode punctuation:
String pat = "(?U)[\\p{Punct}&&[^#',&]]";
^^^^
The pattern matches any punctuation (with \p{Punct}) except #, ', , and &.
If you need to exclude more characters, add them to the negated character class. Just remember to always escape -, \, ^, [ and ] inside a Java regex character class/set. E.g. adding a backslash and - might look like "[\\p{Punct}&&[^#',&\\\\-]]" or "[\\p{Punct}&&[^#',&\\-\\\\]]".
Java demo:
String value = "#`~!#$%^，";
String pattern = "(?U)[\\p{Punct}&&[^#',&]]";
Pattern r = Pattern.compile(pattern); // Create a Pattern object
Matcher m = r.matcher(value); // Now create matcher object.
while (m.find()) {
System.out.println("Found value: " + m.group());
}
Output:
Found value: #
Found value: !
Found value: #
Found value: %
Found value: ，