#pattern matching in java

There are times when we do not know the exact item but we know how it looks like i.e. it has specific pattern and certain characteristics. So by just knowing the pattern, we can identify the items. In the same way, there are patterns to identify strings or set of strings in given text or file in java. For that, we have a REGULAR EXPRESSION in java. e.g. if we want to catch all email from the given text, we know how emails look like so we can define a pattern. We create a regex to represent that pattern. And performing pattern match on the given text, we can list all the emails in the given input text.

So regular expression is a special sequence of character that helps to match, find, edit other string or set of strings in the given input, using a specialized string held in so-called Pattern. The regular expression in java is provided through java.util.regex package. Java.util.regex primarily contains three classes name listed below

- Pattern Class: It is used to define the patterns for matching. An object of Pattern class represents a compiled representation of the regular expression. There is no public constructor available to create an object of Pattern class. To instantiate an object of Pattern class, one has to use any version of public static compile() method of Pattern class. These methods accept regular expression string as the first argument.

- Matcher Class: Matcher class is an engine to interpret the pattern of regular expression and performs the match on the input string. Matcher class too does not have any public constructor. To obtain an object of Matcher class, one has to use call matcher() method on Pattern Class object.

- PatternSyntaxException Class: A PatternSyntaxException class represents an unchecked exception that indicates a Syntax error in the regular expression.

CAPTURING GROUP in Regular Expression

The capturing group represents the group of the letter put together as a single unit. They are created by putting letters to be grouped in parentheses. e.g. (techie360).

Capturing groups are numbered by counting the opening parentheses from left to right. e.g ((t)(pq)) has capturing group in the order ((t)(pq)), (t), (pq).

To find the number of capturing group in the regular expression, just use groupCount() method on Matcher class object. Every capturing group contains group 0 which is not included in the count returned by groupCount().

Example of Capturing Group usage

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class RegexMatches { public static void main( String args[] ) { // input String String line = "you are reading post on techie360!"; String pattern = "(.*)(\\d+)(.*)"; // Create a Pattern object Pattern p = Pattern.compile(pattern); // Now create matcher object. Matcher m = p.matcher(line); if (m.find( )) { System.out.println("Found value: " + m.group(0) ); System.out.println("Found value: " + m.group(1) ); System.out.println("Found value: " + m.group(2) ); }else { System.out.println("NO MATCH"); } } }

The output of the above program would be

Found value: you are reading post on techie360! Found value: you are reading post on techie360! Found value: 0

REGULAR EXPRESSION SYNTAX AND MEANING

In the below table, a complete list of regular expression letters are listed

Regex Meaning ^ Matches the beginning of the line. $ Matches the end of the line. . Matches any single character except a newline. Using m option allows it to match the newline as well. [...] Matches any single character in brackets. [^...] Matches any single character not in brackets. \A Beginning of the entire string. \z End of the entire string. \Z End of the entire string except for allowable final line terminator. re* Matches 0 or more occurrences of the preceding expression. re+ Matches 1 or more of the previous thing. re? Matches 0 or 1 occurrence of the preceding expression. re{ n} Matches exactly n number of occurrences of the preceding expression. re{ n,} Matches n or more occurrences of the preceding expression. re{ n, m} Matches at least n and at most m occurrences of the preceding expression. a| b Matches either a or b. (re) Groups regular expressions and remembers the matched text. (?: re) Groups regular expressions without remembering the matched text. (?> re) Matches the independent pattern without backtracking. \w Matches the word characters. \W Matches the nonword characters. \s Matches the whitespace. Equivalent to [\t\n\r\f]. \S Matches the non-whitespace. \d Matches the digits. Equivalent to [0-9]. \D Matches the non-digits. \A Matches the beginning of the string. \Z Matches the end of the string. If a newline exists, it matches just before newline. \z Matches the end of the string. \G Matches the point where the last match finished. \n Back-reference to capture group number "n". \b Matches the word boundaries when outside the brackets. Matches the backspace (0x08) when inside the brackets. \B Matches the nonword boundaries. \n, \t, etc. Matches newlines, carriage returns, tabs, etc. \Q Escape (quote) all characters up to \E. \E Ends quoting begun with \Q.

METHODS OF MATCHER CLASS

Matcher class methods can be divided into three categories basis the function they perform:

- Index Methods: index methods provide the index of match found in the input string. Below is the list of index methods:

Method Explanation public int start() Returns the start index of the previous match. public int start(int group) Returns the start index of the subsequence captured by the given group during the previous match operation. public int end() Returns the offset after the last character matched. public int end(int group) Returns the offset after the last character of the subsequence captured by the given group during the previous match operation.

- Study Methods: these methods perform match on the input string and return whether the match is found or not. Please see below list for all Study methods:

Method Description Public boolean lookingAt() Attempts to match the input sequence, starting at the beginning of the region, against the pattern. public boolean find() Attempts to find the next subsequence of the input sequence that matches the pattern. public boolean find(int start) Resets this matcher and then attempts to find the next subsequence of the input sequence that matches the pattern, starting at the specified index. public boolean matches() Attempts to match the entire region against the pattern.

REPLACEMENT METHODS:

These methods perform replacement in the input string. Below are replacement methods

Method & Description public Matcher appendReplacement(StringBuffer sb, String replacement) Implements a non-terminal append-and-replace step. public StringBuffer appendTail(StringBuffer sb) Implements a terminal append-and-replace step. public String replaceAll(String replacement) Replaces every subsequence of the input sequence that matches the pattern with the given replacement string. public String replaceFirst(String replacement) Replaces the first subsequence of the input sequence that matches the pattern with the given replacement string. public static String quoteReplacement(String s) Returns a literal replacement String for the specified String. This method produces a String that will work as a literal replacement s in the appendReplacement method of the Matcher class.

matches() and lookingAt() methods: Similarity and differences

- both methods match pattern in the input string

- both start matching at the start of input string

- matches() requires complete string to be matched but lookingAt() does not require the complete string to be matching.

To demonstrate the difference see the example below:

import java.util.regex.Pattern; import java.util.regex.Matcher; public class RegexMatches { private static final String REGEX = "too"; private static final String INPUT = "tooo"; private static Pattern pattern; private static Matcher matcher; public static void main( String args[] ) { pattern = Pattern.compile(REGEX); matcher = pattern.matcher(INPUT); System.out.println("REGEX is: "+REGEX); System.out.println("INPUT is: "+INPUT); System.out.println("lookingAt(): "+matcher.lookingAt()); System.out.println("matches(): "+matcher.matches()); } }

the output of the above program

REGEX is: foo INPUT is: fooooooooooooooooo lookingAt(): true matches(): false

- replaceFirst( ) replaces first matching occurrence and replaceAll() replaces all occurrences of the pattern matching.

So we understand how we can use regular expression in java for pattern matching. Regular expressions are quite a powerful tool in java to find, edit and replace the input string.