A regular expression, specified as a string, must first be compiled into
an instance of this class. The resulting pattern can then be used to create
a Matcher
object that can match arbitrary character sequences
against the regular
expression. All of the state involved in performing a match resides in the
matcher, so many matchers can share the same pattern.
A typical invocation sequence is thus
Pattern p = Pattern.compile ("a*b"); Matcher m = p.matcher ("aaaaab"); boolean b = m.matches ();
A matches method is defined by this class as a convenience for when a regular expression is used just once. This method compiles an expression and matches an input sequence against it in a single invocation. The statement
is equivalent to the three statements above, though for repeated matches it is less efficient since it does not allow the compiled pattern to be reused.boolean b = Pattern.matches("a*b", "aaaaab");
Instances of this class are immutable and are safe for use by multiple
concurrent threads. Instances of the Matcher
class are not safe for
such use.
Summary of regular-expression constructs
Construct | Matches |
---|---|
Characters | |
x | The character x |
\\ | The backslash character |
\0n | The character with octal value 0n (0 <= n <= 7) |
\0nn | The character with octal value 0nn (0 <= n <= 7) |
\0mnn | The character with octal value 0mnn (0 <= m <= 3, 0 <= n <= 7) |
\xhh | The character with hexadecimal value 0xhh |
\uhhhh | The character with hexadecimal value 0xhhhh |
\t | The tab character ('\u0009') |
\n | The newline (line feed) character ('\u000A') |
\r | The carriage-return character ('\u000D') |
\f | The form-feed character ('\u000C') |
\a | The alert (bell) character ('\u0007') |
\e | The escape character ('\u001B') |
\cx | The control character corresponding to x |
Character classes | |
[abc] | a, b, or c (simple class) |
[^abc] | Any character except a, b, or c (negation) |
[a-zA-Z] | a through z or A through Z, inclusive (range) |
[a-d[m-p]] | a through d, or m through p: [a-dm-p] (union) |
[a-z&&[def]] | d, e, or f (intersection) |
[a-z&&[^bc]] | a through z, except for b and c: [ad-z] (subtraction) |
[a-z&&[^m-p]] | a through z, and not m through p: [a-lq-z](subtraction) |
Predefined character classes | |
. | Any character (may or may not match line terminators) |
\d | A digit: [0-9] |
\D | A non-digit: [^0-9] |
\s | A whitespace character: [ \t\n\x0B\f\r] |
\S | A non-whitespace character: [^\s] |
\w | A word character: [a-zA-Z_0-9] |
\W | A non-word character: [^\w] |
POSIX character classes (US-ASCII only) | |
\p{Lower} | A lower-case alphabetic character: [a-z] |
\p{Upper} | An upper-case alphabetic character:[A-Z] |
\p{ASCII} | All ASCII:[\x00-\x7F] |
\p{Alpha} | An alphabetic character:[\p{Lower}\p{Upper}] |
\p{Digit} | A decimal digit: [0-9] |
\p{Alnum} | An alphanumeric character:[\p{Alpha}\p{Digit}] |
\p{Punct} | Punctuation: One of !"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{|}~ |
\p{Graph} | A visible character: [\p{Alnum}\p{Punct}] |
\p{Print} | A printable character: [\p{Graph}\x20] |
\p{Blank} | A space or a tab: [ \t] |
\p{Cntrl} | A control character: [\x00-\x1F\x7F] |
\p{XDigit} | A hexadecimal digit: [0-9a-fA-F] |
\p{Space} | A whitespace character: [ \t\n\x0B\f\r] |
java.lang.Character classes (simple java character type) | |
\p{javaLowerCase} | Equivalent to java.lang.Character.isLowerCase() |
\p{javaUpperCase} | Equivalent to java.lang.Character.isUpperCase() |
\p{javaWhitespace} | Equivalent to java.lang.Character.isWhitespace() |
\p{javaMirrored} | Equivalent to java.lang.Character.isMirrored() |
Classes for Unicode blocks and categories | |
\p{InGreek} | A character in the Greek block (simple block) |
\p{Lu} | An uppercase letter (simple category) |
\p{Sc} | A currency symbol |
\P{InGreek} | Any character except one in the Greek block (negation) |
[\p{L}&&[^\p{Lu}]] | Any letter except an uppercase letter (subtraction) |
Boundary matchers | |
^ | The beginning of a line |
$ | The end of a line |
\b | A word boundary |
\B | A non-word boundary |
\A | The beginning of the input |
\G | The end of the previous match |
\Z | The end of the input but for the final terminator, if any |
\z | The end of the input |
Greedy quantifiers | |
X? | X, once or not at all |
X* | X, zero or more times |
X+ | X, one or more times |
X{n} | X, exactly n times |
X{n,} | X, at least n times |
X{n,m} | X, at least n but not more than m times |
Reluctant quantifiers | |
X?? | X, once or not at all |
X*? | X, zero or more times |
X+? | X, one or more times |
X{n}? | X, exactly n times |
X{n,}? | X, at least n times |
X{n,m}? | X, at least n but not more than m times |
Possessive quantifiers | |
X?+ | X, once or not at all |
X*+ | X, zero or more times |
X++ | X, one or more times |
X{n}+ | X, exactly n times |
X{n,}+ | X, at least n times |
X{n,m}+ | X, at least n but not more than m times |
Logical operators | |
XY | X followed by Y |
X|Y | Either X or Y |
(X) | X, as a capturing group |
Back references | |
\n | Whatever the nth capturing group matched |
Quotation | |
\ | Nothing, but quotes the following character |
\Q | Nothing, but quotes all characters until \E |
\E | Nothing, but ends quoting started by \Q |
Special constructs (non-capturing) | |
(?:X) | X, as a non-capturing group |
(?idmsux-idmsux) | Nothing, but turns match flags on - off |
(?idmsux-idmsux:X) | X, as a non-capturing group with the given flags on - off |
(?=X) | X, via zero-width positive lookahead |
(?!X) | X, via zero-width negative lookahead |
(?<=X) | X, via zero-width positive lookbehind |
(?<!X) | X, via zero-width negative lookbehind |
(?>X) | X, as an independent, non-capturing group |
The backslash character ('\') serves to introduce escaped constructs, as defined in the table above, as well as to quote characters that otherwise would be interpreted as unescaped constructs. Thus the expression \\ matches a single backslash and \{ matches a left brace.
It is an error to use a backslash prior to any alphabetic character that does not denote an escaped construct; these are reserved for future extensions to the regular-expression language. A backslash may be used prior to a non-alphabetic character regardless of whether that character is part of an unescaped construct.
Backslashes within string literals in Java source code are interpreted
as required by the Java Language
Specification as either Unicode
escapes or other character
escapes. It is therefore necessary to double backslashes in string
literals that represent regular expressions to protect them from
interpretation by the Java bytecode compiler. The string literal
"\b", for example, matches a single backspace character when
interpreted as a regular expression, while "\\b" matches a
word boundary. The string literal "\(hello\)" is illegal
and leads to a compile-time error; in order to match the string
(hello) the string literal "\\(hello\\)"
must be used.
Character classes may appear within other character classes, and
may be composed by the union operator (implicit) and the intersection
operator (&&).
The union operator denotes a class that contains every character that is
in at least one of its operand classes. The intersection operator
denotes a class that contains every character that is in both of its
operand classes.
The precedence of character-class operators is as follows, from
highest to lowest:
Note that a different set of metacharacters are in effect inside
a character class than outside a character class. For instance, the
regular expression . loses its special meaning inside a
character class, while the expression - becomes a range
forming metacharacter.
A line terminator is a one- or two-character sequence that marks
the end of a line of the input character sequence. The following are
recognized as line terminators:
If #UNIX_LINES
mode is activated, then the only line terminators
recognized are newline characters.
The regular expression . matches any character except a line
terminator unless the #DOTALL
flag is specified.
By default, the regular expressions ^ and $ ignore
line terminators and only match at the beginning and the end, respectively,
of the entire input sequence. If #MULTILINE
mode is activated then
^ matches at the beginning of input and after any line terminator
except at the end of input. When in #MULTILINE
mode $
matches just before a line terminator or the end of the input sequence.
Capturing groups are numbered by counting their opening parentheses from
left to right. In the expression ((A)(B(C))), for example, there
are four such groups: Group zero always stands for the entire expression.
Capturing groups are so named because, during a match, each subsequence
of the input sequence that matches such a group is saved. The captured
subsequence may be used later in the expression, via a back reference, and
may also be retrieved from the matcher once the match operation is complete.
The captured input associated with a group is always the subsequence
that the group most recently matched. If a group is evaluated a second time
because of quantification then its previously-captured value, if any, will
be retained if the second evaluation fails. Matching the string
"aba" against the expression (a(b)?)+, for example, leaves
group two set to "b". All captured input is discarded at the
beginning of each match.
Groups beginning with (? are pure, non-capturing groups
that do not capture text and do not count towards the group total.
This class is in conformance with Level 1 of Unicode Technical
Standard #18: Unicode Regular Expression Guidelines, plus RL2.1
Canonical Equivalents.
Unicode escape sequences such as \u2014 in Java source code
are processed as described in §3.3
of the Java Language Specification. Such escape sequences are also
implemented directly by the regular-expression parser so that Unicode
escapes can be used in expressions that are read from files or from the
keyboard. Thus the strings "\u2014" and "\\u2014",
while not equal, compile into the same pattern, which matches the character
with hexadecimal value 0x2014.
Unicode blocks and categories are written with the
\p and \P constructs as in
Perl. \p{prop} matches if the input has the
property prop, while \P{prop} does not match if
the input has that property. Blocks are specified with the prefix
In, as in InMongolian. Categories may be specified with
the optional prefix Is: Both \p{L} and \p{IsL}
denote the category of Unicode letters. Blocks and categories can be used
both inside and outside of a character class.
The supported categories are those of
The Unicode Standard in the version specified by the
Character
class. The category names are those
defined in the Standard, both normative and informative.
The block names supported by Categories that behave like the java.lang.Character
boolean ismethodname methods (except for the deprecated ones) are
available through the same \p{prop} syntax where
the specified property has the name javamethodname.
The Perl constructs not supported by this class: The conditional constructs (?{X}) and
(?(condition)X|Y),
The embedded code constructs (?{code})
and (??{code}), The embedded comment syntax (?#comment), and The preprocessing operations \l \u,
\L, and \U. Constructs supported by this class but not by Perl: Possessive quantifiers, which greedily match as much as they can
and do not back off, even when doing so would allow the overall match to
succeed. Character-class union and intersection as described
above. Notable differences from Perl: In Perl, \1 through \9 are always interpreted
as back references; a backslash-escaped number greater than 9 is
treated as a back reference if at least that many subexpressions exist,
otherwise it is interpreted, if possible, as an octal escape. In this
class octal escapes must always begin with a zero. In this class,
\1 through \9 are always interpreted as back
references, and a larger number is accepted as a back reference if at
least that many subexpressions exist at that point in the regular
expression, otherwise the parser will drop digits until the number is
smaller or equal to the existing number of groups or it is one digit.
Perl uses the g flag to request a match that resumes
where the last match left off. This functionality is provided implicitly
by the Matcher
class: Repeated invocations of the find
method will resume where the last match left off,
unless the matcher is reset. In Perl, embedded flags at the top level of an expression affect
the whole expression. In this class, embedded flags always take effect
at the point at which they appear, whether they are at the top level or
within a group; in the latter case, flags are restored at the end of the
group just as in Perl. Perl is forgiving about malformed matching constructs, as in the
expression *a, as well as dangling brackets, as in the
expression abc], and treats them as literals. This
class also accepts dangling brackets but is strict about dangling
metacharacters like +, ? and *, and will throw a
PatternSyntaxException
if it encounters them. For a more precise description of the behavior of regular expression
constructs, please see
Mastering Regular Expressions, 2nd Edition, Jeffrey E. F. Friedl,
O'Reilly and Associates, 2002.
Character Classes
1
Literal escape
\x 2
Grouping
[...] 3
Range
a-z 4
Union
[a-e][i-u] 5
Intersection
[a-z&&[aeiou]] Line terminators
Groups and capturing
1
((A)(B(C))) 2
(A) 3
(B(C)) 4
(C) Unicode support
Pattern
are the valid block names
accepted and defined by
UnicodeBlock.forName
.
Comparison to Perl 5
Pattern
engine performs traditional NFA-based matching
with ordered alternation as occurs in Perl 5.
When this flag is specified then two characters will be considered to match if, and only if, their full canonical decompositions match. The expression "a\u030A", for example, will match the string "å" when this flag is specified. By default, matching does not take canonical equivalence into account.
There is no embedded flag character for enabling canonical equivalence.
Specifying this flag may impose a performance penalty.
By default, case-insensitive matching assumes that only characters in the US-ASCII charset are being matched. Unicode-aware case-insensitive matching can be enabled by specifying the #UNICODE_CASE flag in conjunction with this flag.
Case-insensitive matching can also be enabled via the embedded flag expression (?i).
Specifying this flag may impose a slight performance penalty.
In this mode, whitespace is ignored, and embedded comments starting with # are ignored until the end of a line.
Comments mode can also be enabled via the embedded flag expression (?x).
In dotall mode, the expression . matches any character, including a line terminator. By default this expression does not match line terminators.
Dotall mode can also be enabled via the embedded flag expression (?s). (The s is a mnemonic for "single-line" mode, which is what this is called in Perl.)
When this flag is specified then the input string that specifies the pattern is treated as a sequence of literal characters. Metacharacters or escape sequences in the input sequence will be given no special meaning.
The flags CASE_INSENSITIVE and UNICODE_CASE retain their impact on matching when used in conjunction with this flag. The other flags become superfluous.
There is no embedded flag character for enabling literal parsing.
In multiline mode the expressions ^ and $ match just after or just before, respectively, a line terminator or the end of the input sequence. By default these expressions only match at the beginning and the end of the entire input sequence.
Multiline mode can also be enabled via the embedded flag expression (?m).
When this flag is specified then case-insensitive matching, when enabled by the #CASE_INSENSITIVE flag, is done in a manner consistent with the Unicode Standard. By default, case-insensitive matching assumes that only characters in the US-ASCII charset are being matched.
Unicode-aware case folding can also be enabled via the embedded flag expression (?u).
Specifying this flag may impose a performance penalty.
In this mode, only the '\n' line terminator is recognized in the behavior of ., ^, and $.
Unix lines mode can also be enabled via the embedded flag expression (?d).
The equals
method implements an equivalence relation
on non-null object references:
x
, x.equals(x)
should return
true
.
x
and y
, x.equals(y)
should return true
if and only if
y.equals(x)
returns true
.
x
, y
, and z
, if
x.equals(y)
returns true
and
y.equals(z)
returns true
, then
x.equals(z)
should return true
.
x
and y
, multiple invocations of
x.equals(y) consistently return true
or consistently return false
, provided no
information used in equals
comparisons on the
objects is modified.
x
,
x.equals(null)
should return false
.
The equals method for class Object
implements
the most discriminating possible equivalence relation on objects;
that is, for any non-null reference values x
and
y
, this method returns true
if and only
if x
and y
refer to the same object
(x == y
has the value true
).
Note that it is generally necessary to override the hashCode method whenever this method is overridden, so as to maintain the general contract for the hashCode method, which states that equal objects must have equal hash codes.
java.util.Hashtable
.
The general contract of hashCode
is:
hashCode
method on each of
the two objects must produce the same integer result.
As much as is reasonably practical, the hashCode method defined by class Object does return distinct integers for distinct objects. (This is typically implemented by converting the internal address of the object into an integer, but this implementation technique is not required by the JavaTM programming language.)
An invocation of this convenience method of the form
behaves in exactly the same way as the expressionPattern.matches(regex, input);
Pattern.compile(regex).matcher(input).matches()
If a pattern is to be used multiple times, compiling it once and reusing it will be more efficient than invoking this method each time.
wait
methods.
The awakened thread will not be able to proceed until the current thread relinquishes the lock on this object. The awakened thread will compete in the usual manner with any other threads that might be actively competing to synchronize on this object; for example, the awakened thread enjoys no reliable privilege or disadvantage in being the next thread to lock this object.
This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner of this object's monitor. A thread becomes the owner of the object's monitor in one of three ways:
synchronized
statement
that synchronizes on the object.
Class,
by executing a
synchronized static method of that class.
Only one thread at a time can own an object's monitor.
wait
methods.
The awakened threads will not be able to proceed until the current thread relinquishes the lock on this object. The awakened threads will compete in the usual manner with any other threads that might be actively competing to synchronize on this object; for example, the awakened threads enjoy no reliable privilege or disadvantage in being the next thread to lock this object.
This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner
of this object's monitor. See the notify
method for a
description of the ways in which a thread can become the owner of
a monitor.
String
for the specified
String
.
This method produces a String
that can be used to
create a Pattern
that would match the string
s
as if it were a literal pattern.
This method works as if by invoking the two-argument split method with the given input sequence and a limit argument of zero. Trailing empty strings are therefore not included in the resulting array.
The input "boo:and:foo", for example, yields the following results with these expressions:
Regex
Result
: { "boo", "and", "foo" } o { "b", "", ":and:f" }
The array returned by this method contains each substring of the input sequence that is terminated by another subsequence that matches this pattern or is terminated by the end of the input sequence. The substrings in the array are in the order in which they occur in the input. If this pattern does not match any subsequence of the input then the resulting array has just one element, namely the input sequence in string form.
The limit parameter controls the number of times the pattern is applied and therefore affects the length of the resulting array. If the limit n is greater than zero then the pattern will be applied at most n - 1 times, the array's length will be no greater than n, and the array's last entry will contain all input beyond the last matched delimiter. If n is non-positive then the pattern will be applied as many times as possible and the array can have any length. If n is zero then the pattern will be applied as many times as possible, the array can have any length, and trailing empty strings will be discarded.
The input "boo:and:foo", for example, yields the following results with these parameters:
Regex
Limit
Result
: 2 { "boo", "and:foo" } : 5 { "boo", "and", "foo" } : -2 { "boo", "and", "foo" } o 5 { "b", "", ":and:f", "", "" } o -2 { "b", "", ":and:f", "", "" } o 0 { "b", "", ":and:f" }
Returns the string representation of this pattern. This is the regular expression from which this pattern was compiled.
The current thread must own this object's monitor. The thread
releases ownership of this monitor and waits until another thread
notifies threads waiting on this object's monitor to wake up
either through a call to the notify
method or the
notifyAll
method. The thread then waits until it can
re-obtain ownership of the monitor and resumes execution.
As in the one argument version, interrupts and spurious wakeups are possible, and this method should always be used in a loop:
synchronized (obj) { while (<condition does not hold>) obj.wait(); ... // Perform action appropriate to condition }This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner of this object's monitor. See the
notify
method for a
description of the ways in which a thread can become the owner of
a monitor.The current thread must own this object's monitor.
This method causes the current thread (call it T) to place itself in the wait set for this object and then to relinquish any and all synchronization claims on this object. Thread T becomes disabled for thread scheduling purposes and lies dormant until one of four things happens:
A thread can also wake up without being notified, interrupted, or timing out, a so-called spurious wakeup. While this will rarely occur in practice, applications must guard against it by testing for the condition that should have caused the thread to be awakened, and continuing to wait if the condition is not satisfied. In other words, waits should always occur in loops, like this one:
synchronized (obj) { while (<condition does not hold>) obj.wait(timeout); ... // Perform action appropriate to condition }(For more information on this topic, see Section 3.2.3 in Doug Lea's "Concurrent Programming in Java (Second Edition)" (Addison-Wesley, 2000), or Item 50 in Joshua Bloch's "Effective Java Programming Language Guide" (Addison-Wesley, 2001).
If the current thread is interrupted by another thread while it is waiting, then an InterruptedException is thrown. This exception is not thrown until the lock status of this object has been restored as described above.
Note that the wait method, as it places the current thread into the wait set for this object, unlocks only this object; any other objects on which the current thread may be synchronized remain locked while the thread waits.
This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner
of this object's monitor. See the notify
method for a
description of the ways in which a thread can become the owner of
a monitor.
This method is similar to the wait
method of one
argument, but it allows finer control over the amount of time to
wait for a notification before giving up. The amount of real time,
measured in nanoseconds, is given by:
1000000*timeout+nanos
In all other respects, this method does the same thing as the method of one argument. In particular, wait(0, 0) means the same thing as wait(0).
The current thread must own this object's monitor. The thread releases ownership of this monitor and waits until either of the following two conditions has occurred:
notify
method
or the notifyAll
method.
timeout
milliseconds plus nanos
nanoseconds arguments, has
elapsed.
The thread then waits until it can re-obtain ownership of the monitor and resumes execution.
As in the one argument version, interrupts and spurious wakeups are possible, and this method should always be used in a loop:
synchronized (obj) { while (<condition does not hold>) obj.wait(timeout, nanos); ... // Perform action appropriate to condition }This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner of this object's monitor. See the
notify
method for a
description of the ways in which a thread can become the owner of
a monitor.