Java Regex cant save text to string

Question

I am trying to save the bolded text to a string.
I have come up with the regex "routeName?.+?routeLengthKM" and according to an online regex tester this should get me what I want with the find method but it is only returning true/false. How can i save the bolded text to a string?

"routes:[{routeName:Dulles Toll Rd W; SR-28 S,routeDurationInMinutes:18,routeLengthKM:21.474,routeLengthMiles:13.343320854,toll:true},{routeName:Frying Pan Rd; SR-28 S,routeDurationInMinutes:18,routeLengthKM:19.437,routeLengthMiles:12.077588127,toll:false}

package regex;
import java.util.regex.*;

public class regexclass {

  public static void main (String args[]){
    Pattern p= Pattern.compile("routeName?.+?routeLengthKM");
    Matcher m= p.matcher("routes:[{routeName:Dulles Toll Rd W; SR-28 S,routeDurationInMinutes:18,routeLengthKM:21.474,routeLengthMiles:13.343320854,toll:true},{routeName:Frying Pan Rd; SR-28 S,routeDurationInMinutes:18,routeLengthKM:19.437,routeLengthMiles:12.077588127,toll:false}]");
    System.out.println(m.find());

  }
}

there is not much to see. I just need to know how to get the bolded text to a string — tylerik, Jul 21 '15 at 19:38
yes i tried that but it gives me an outofbounds exception saying "no group 1" — tylerik, Jul 21 '15 at 19:46

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 21 '15 at 19:47

m.find(); will launch the matching engine. This will try to match the regex against the text. It returns true if a match could be found, and false if no match could be found. Normally, you would use a construct like this to find all matches:

while(m.find()) {}

After having found a match (i.e. after m.find(); or better if (m.find()) {), you can retrieve the match with m.group(n); with n the group number. 0 is the full match group and all other numbers up from there (1,2,3,...) refer to subgroups (things in parentheses).

Java Regex cant save text to string

1 Answers1