Regular Expression

[Pawan Arora]

import java.util.regex.*;
class Regular_Expression
{
public static void main(String[] arg)
{
 
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("[a-zA-Z]+\\,\\.");
Matcher m = p.matcher("90 years ago, he used to be bad.");
if (m.find())
    System.out.println(m.group());
 
}

In the above program I want the output as yeargs ago, he used to be bad. But it is returning no output to me. Can anybody tell me how could I get my relevant answer, and what's the flaw this programme has to be not be able to returned the desirable result.

[Gamini Sirisena]

Pawan,
Do you mean you want the output to be years ago, he used to be bad. ?

You seem to have missed matching the white spaces.

[Rob Spoor]

[a-zA-Z]+\\,\\.

That means 1 or more letters, followed by a comma and a dot. Now I doubt there will ever be a proper sentence that ends in comma-dot. And where is the whitespace in your regex?

[Pawan Arora]

I have tried another way

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\b(\\s+)([a-zA-Z]+)(\\,)(\\s+)([a-zA-Z]+)(\\.)\\b");
Matcher m = p.matcher("90 years ago, he used to be bad.");
if (m.find())
    System.out.println(m.group());

but I'm not yet getting any output. CAn anybody please tell me what's wrong in this particular expression?
[ November 21, 2008: Message edited by: Pawan Arora ]

[Henry Wong]

CAn anybody please tell me what's wrong in this particular expression?

Your pattern is some whitespaces, some letters, a comma, some white spaces, some letters, and a period... You are getting nothing back because it doesn't match your string.


Now, if your string had been "90 ago, bad.", then it would have removed the 90 -- and returned the rest.

Henry
[ November 21, 2008: Message edited by: Henry Wong ]

[Piet Verdriet]

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\D++");

[ November 22, 2008: Message edited by: Piet Verdriet ]

[Pawan Arora]

Thanks

[Gamini Sirisena]

That's pretty good. This will possessively match all non digits.

Does that match your requirement Pawan?