Regex Doubt?

[Gopu Akraju]

I have a String as below:

c:/Documents and Settings/user/X_008_01_17_16_admin_FP009Y260KP/X_008_01_17_16_admin_analysis

I want to capture just FP009Y260KP from the above string. I tried with regex

 Pattern myRE = Pattern.compile("FP.*KP");

But it says no match found.
[ April 03, 2008: Message edited by: Gopu Akraju ]

[Anubhav Anand]

Well this works perfectly fine for me.

String strInput = "c:/Documents and Settings/user/X_008_01_17_16_admin_FP009Y260KP/X_008_01_17_16_admin_analysis";
Pattern loc_pattern = Pattern.compile("FP.*KP");
Matcher loc_matcher = loc_pattern.matcher(strInput);
System.out.println(loc_matcher.find());

[Gopu Akraju]

I tried as below:

String patternStr = "FP.*KP";
 
String test = "c:/Documents and Settings/user/X_008_01_17_16_admin_FP009Y260KP/X_008_01_17_16_admin_analysis"
 
 Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(patternStr);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(test);
System.out.println(matcher);

It is just printing as below:
java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=FP.*KP region=0,170 lastmatch=]

What does it mean? How to print FP009Y260KP alone from the test string?

[Gopu Akraju]

Thanks Anand. Both of us should have posted almost the same time. I tried as you mentioned.
System.out.println(matcher.find());
It is just printing trueBut I want to print the string FP009Y260KPThanks again.

[Anubhav Anand]

Try this.

String strInput = "c:/Documents and Settings/user/X_008_01_17_16_admin_FP009Y260KP/X_008_01_17_16_admin_analysis";
Pattern loc_pattern = Pattern.compile("FP.*KP");
Matcher loc_matcher = loc_pattern.matcher(strInput);
String strRequiredVal = null;
if(loc_matcher.find())
    strRequiredVal = strInput.substring(loc_matcher.start(),loc_matcher.end());
System.out.println(strRequiredVal);

I suggest that you should read some good regex tutorials. That will help you enrich your knowledge. Do some googling. That should do.

Also, get the differnce between the methods like matcher.find() , matcher.lookingAt() and matcher.matches(). These subtle differences are really important.
[ April 03, 2008: Message edited by: Anubhav Anand ]

[Henry Wong]

if(loc_matcher.find())
    strRequiredVal = strInput.substring(loc_matcher.start(),loc_matcher.end());   

Just pointing out the obvious... isn't calling loc_matcher.group() much much easier than calling subtring() with the start() and end() of the match?

Henry

[Anubhav Anand]

Very true Henry. Thanks