Java Regex Grouping Problem

Question

I'm trying to figure out a Java regex problem that I'm having. This is 1.6, but I don't think that matters. Anyway...

I'm going to have some input data like the following...

"Blah yadda yidda 44-Barack Obama, this that the other"

or

"Something here, there 22-Hyphenated-example.  Hi there folks"

Basically I want to extract everything following the number through to the trailing punctuation. In the two examples inputs I want to extract...

"Barack Obama"

and

"Hyphenated-example"

I can't quite get the pattern I need to use. The closest I can get is this...

"[0-9]{1,2}-([A-Z -]*\\b*)"

that, however, gives me...

"44-Barack Obama"

My code is...

Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher("Blah yadda yidda 44-Barack Obama, this that the other");
if (matcher.find())
    // This gives me "44-Barack Obama" but I want "Barack Obama".
    System.out.println(matcher.group());

Interestingly, I'm using the QuickREx Eclipse plugin to test this pattern and it returns the proper value. However, running the above code does not.

Any ideas?

erickson · Accepted Answer · 2009-04-13 17:42:23Z

4

Use the result of matcher.group(1), not matcher.group(). The second form returns everything that was matched by the previous matches or find method. The first form is used to access individual capture groups in the regex.

answered Apr 13, 2009 at 17:42

erickson

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1 Comment

SteveT Over a year ago

Ouch!! I guess it's important to read the ENTIRE Javadoc! Erickson wins the prize. In under a minute even!!

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