How to split a string in two using a pivot a number?

Question

I'm trying to split a string into two parts using regex, but apparently, the regex is greedy so in the first group it adds a little bit more.

Example of string: "This is a phrase 22ext"

Desired result:

• Group 0 = "This is a phrase"

• Group 1 = "22"

• The "ex"t iss discarded.

I'm using the following Regex (in java):

[^0-9]*([0-9]+).*

It works for Group 1, but in Group 0, it includes "22ext" as well.

How can I avoid it?

Answer 1

Your regex doesn't give the desired output because you didn't add the first part of it in a group, so you only have one group in your regex ¹. You can fix that by using:

([^0-9]*)([0-9]+).*

And then you can find your two strings in "Group 1" and "Group 2". Note that "Group 0" is the full match.

Here's a demo.

A better and shorter way is to use the following regex:

(\D*)(\d+)

Which matches any non-numeric characters in the first group (until it reaches the first numeric characters) and then it matches the upcoming numeric characters including all Unicode digits in the second group.

And you can decide whether or not to include the .* at the end.

Try it online.

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References:

• Difference between [0-9] and \d.

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¹ _{"Group 0" is the full match for the entire pattern, so you need to use "Group 1" and "Group 2".}