Regular expression to split a string into 5 parts as below

Question

This is my input string and I wanted to break it up into 5 parts according to regex below so that I can print out the 5 groups but I always get a no match found. What am I doing wrong ?

String content="beit Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,,&lt;m&gt;Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2012.,&lt;xm&gt;";

Pattern regEx = Pattern.compile("^(.*)(&lt;m&gt;)(.*)(&lt;xm&gt;)(.*)$", Pattern.MULTILINE);
System.out.println(regEx.matcher(content).group(1));
System.out.println(regEx.matcher(content).group(2));
System.out.println(regEx.matcher(content).group(3));
System.out.println(regEx.matcher(content).group(4));
System.out.println(regEx.matcher(content).group(5));

jlordo · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-03 19:24:06Z

0

Pattern regEx = Pattern.compile("^(.*)(&lt;m&gt;)(.*)(&lt;xm&gt;)(.*)$", Pattern.MULTILINE);
Matcher matcher = regEx.matcher(content);
if (matcher.find()) { // calling find() is important
// if the regex matches multiple times, use while instead of if
    System.out.println(matcher.group(1));
    System.out.println(matcher.group(2));
    System.out.println(matcher.group(3));
    System.out.println(matcher.group(4));
    System.out.println(matcher.group(5));
} else {
    System.out.println("Regex didn't match");
}

edited Jun 3, 2013 at 19:24

answered Jun 3, 2013 at 19:18

jlordo

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3 Comments

Phoenix Over a year ago

jlordo, I ultimately want to do this: "regEx.matcher(content).replaceAll(replaceExpression)" and my replaceExpression is like: "$1<marginal>$3</marginal>$5" but it doesnt replace.

jlordo Over a year ago

@Phoenix: and where's the problem? You didn't address that in your question at all.

JB Nizet Over a year ago

@jlordo: he asked a first question here, but didn't have an answer for 50 minutes (gasp!), so he asked another.

Adrian · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-03 19:18:42Z

0

Your regex's 5th match doesn't match anything - there is no content after the <xm>. Also, you should really run regEx.matcher() once, and then pull the groups out of the one matcher; as written, it executes the regex 5 times, once to get each group out. Also your RegEx is never executed unless you call find() or matches.

answered Jun 3, 2013 at 19:18

Adrian

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2 Comments

jlordo Over a year ago

it actually executes the regex never, becaue neither find() nor matches() is ever called.

jlordo Over a year ago

find() and matches() can't be called on a Pattern.

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