Why isn't this boolean changing when it matches my regex?

Question

so I am running this in the most recent build of Eclipse. and for some reason, neither me nor my teacher can figure out why this boolean is not changing

This is the code

String value = null;
boolean matching = false;
String regex = "^[a-zA-Z]$";
Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in);
value = input.next();

if (value.matches(regex))
{
    matching = true;
}
else
{
    System.out.println("Name is incorrect, please try again");
}


System.out.println(matching);
System.out.println(value);

Welcome to Stack Overflow! Please post the code within the question *as text*, instead of a link to an image — GBlodgett, Nov 28 '18 at 23:28
Inputting the name Scott should match the regex, yet for some reason it's not. — MountainBeast, Nov 28 '18 at 23:34
It should change because the name input into value "Scott" matches the regex pattern of a-zA-z — MountainBeast, Nov 28 '18 at 23:35
@MountainBeast `^` matches the beginning and `$` matches the end, and you only specify one character in between matching `[a-zA-z]`. To have it match more than one character that matches do `^[a-zA-Z]+$` — GBlodgett, Nov 28 '18 at 23:35
You are matching a **single** letter and it troubles me that your teacher is reportedly clueless. — PM 77-1, Nov 28 '18 at 23:35

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 28 '18 at 23:32

By specifying the regex ^[a-zA-Z]$, you are matching single letter inputs (for eg. "a", "d" "F") ... since you input multicharacter string, it wouldn't match

In order to match strings of length>=1 you could use the + operator in regexes, like so,

^[a-zA-Z]+$

Why isn't this boolean changing when it matches my regex?

1 Answers1