regex not matching wildcard

Question

I have the following HTML:

<tr><td><font color="#306eff">P: </font>9283-1000<font color="#306eff">&nbsp;&nbsp;

OR (newline)

<tr><td><font color="#306eff">P: </font>9283-1000

<font color="#306eff">&nbsp;&nbsp;

I went to regexpal.com and entered the following regex:

P: </font>(.*?)<font

And it matches. But when I do it in Java, it doesn't match:

    Pattern rP = Pattern.compile(">P: </font>(.*?)<font");
    Matcher mP = rP.matcher(data);

    if (mP.find()) {
        System.out.println(mP.group(1).trim());
    }

There are multiple regexes I tried on different occasions and they simply don't work in Java. Any suggestions? Thanks!

[Use a HTML parser instead](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags?answertab=oldest#tab-top) — Reimeus, Jan 09 '14 at 11:17

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 09 '14 at 11:13

Your works fine for me.

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String data = "<tr><td><font color=\"#306eff\">P: </font>9283-1000<font color=\"#306eff\">&nbsp;&nbsp;";
        Pattern rP = Pattern.compile(">P: </font>(.*?)<font");
        Matcher mP = rP.matcher(data);

        if (mP.find()) {
            System.out.println(mP.group(1).trim());
        }
    }

This prints: 9283-1000.

I guess the problem may be in how data is fed into the program.
Because the code itself is OK as you can see from this output.

I updated the code. Input contains newline. That's why it's not matching. Can you tell me how to match that? — user2320462, Jan 09 '14 at 12:36

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 09 '14 at 12:39

1

Dot does not match newline by default.

Use Pattern rP = Pattern.compile(">P: </font>(.*?)<font", Pattern.DOTALL);

Reference here.

answered Jan 09 '14 at 12:39

aalku

2,860
2
23
44

Stephan · Answer 3 · 2014-01-09T12:14:41.383

0

Try this regex instead:

(?ims).*?>P: </font>(.*?)<font.+

Sample code

public static void main(String[] args) {
    String data="<tr><td><font color=\"#306eff\">P: </font>9283-1000<font color=\"#306eff\">&nbsp;&nbsp;";
    Pattern rP = Pattern.compile("(?ims).*?>P: </font>(.*?)<font.+");
    Matcher mP = rP.matcher(data);

    if (mP.find()) {
          System.out.println(mP.group(1).trim());
    }
}

Output

9283-1000

edited Jan 09 '14 at 12:14

answered Jan 09 '14 at 11:14

Stephan

41,764
65
238
329

@user2320462 Can you post the data you're using in your question ? – Stephan Jan 09 '14 at 12:12
I updated my question. The input contains newlines. Can you tell me how to deal with that please? Thanks – user2320462 Jan 09 '14 at 12:34
Even if there is newlines, the regex works fine (the `s` flag is activated). Check your code then... – Stephan Jan 09 '14 at 12:38

Sujith PS · Answer 4 · 2014-01-09T11:30:04.933

0

Try this :

String data="<tr><td><font color=\"#306eff\">P: </font>9283-1000<font color=\"#306eff\">&nbsp;&nbsp;";
Pattern rP = Pattern.compile(">P: </font>(.*?)<font");
Matcher mP = rP.matcher(data);

if (mP.find()) {
      System.out.println(mP.group(1).trim());
}

In java only difference is in escape character .

edited Jan 09 '14 at 11:30

answered Jan 09 '14 at 11:18

Sujith PS

4,776
3
34
61

sorry, I don't see the difference – user2320462 Jan 09 '14 at 11:21
Difference is in data variable . In java string characters must be between "" . In your html code double quotes are there. So you want to escape those charaters using escape character \ . – Sujith PS Jan 09 '14 at 11:23

regex not matching wildcard

4 Answers4