How is it possible to extract only a time part of the form XX:YY out of a string?
For example - from a string like:
sdhgjhdgsjdf12:34knvxjkvndf, I would like to extract only 12:34.
( The surrounding chars can be spaces too of course )
Of course I can find the semicolon and get two chars before and two chars after, but it is bahhhhhh.....
You can use this look-around based regex for your match:
(?<!\d)\d{2}:\d{2}(?!\d)
In Java:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(?<!\\d)\\d{2}:\\d{2}(?!\\d)");
RegEx Breakup:
(?<!\d) # negative lookbehind to assert previous char is not a digit
\d{2} # match exact 2 digits
: # match a colon
\d{2} # match exact 2 digits
(?!\d) # negative lookahead to assert next char is not a digit
Full Code:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(?<!\\d)\\d{2}:\\d{2}(?!\\d)");
Matcher m = pattern.matcher(inputString);
if (m.find()) {
System.err.println("Time: " + m.group());
}
Matcher class in Java and call p.matcher followed by matcher.find and matcher.group to get your value