regex how to find UP TO a character but not include this in matcher.group() result

[J Westland]

Hi -

I want to do the following:

In lines looking like so:

metadata\Metadata00060_v00004\gmd\gmd.jar<location>

I want to find only:

metadata\Metadata00060_v00004\gmd\gmd.jar

My current pattern is:

Pattern meta = Pattern.compile("Metadata.*?<");

That leaves me with the < in my search which I don't want. I did a quick Google and look through the Java tutorials JavaScript has something called "lookahead" which is want I want, but doesn't look Java has this.

How should I go about to do this?

Thanks,

Jawine

[Mazer Lao Tzu]

Simply put parentheses around the part of your pattern that you wish to find. Then, instead of using matcher.group(), use matcher.group(1).

For example:

Pattern foo = Pattern.compile("bar(baz.*)<location>");
...
String result = matcher.group(1);

If the above was given the input "barbaztastic.jar<location>" then result would be "baztastic.jar" at the end.

[Rob Spoor]

Check out the Javadoc of java.util.regex.Pattern and search for (positive) lookahead.

[J Westland]

@Mazer Lao Tzu: Thank you that works
@Rob Prime: I just remember now I did indeed see it in the API but I couldn't get it to work.

Regex was covered in the SCJP but of course only the basics, I will try around a bit more with what you both told me, the only way to learn really

[Rob Spoor]

J Westland wrote:@Rob Prime: I just remember now I did indeed see it in the API but I couldn't get it to work.

What regex did you come up with, using a positive lookahead? Then we can tell you what you did wrong.