Question

For a assignment I need to extract certain information from files (in java), the text in the files goes similar to this :

OFFICE_MANAGEMENT =     Higher ManagementCONSTRUCTION = SupervisorCONTRACT_MANAGEMENT = Contract ManagerPROJECT =   Project ManagerLOCATION = User Specified LocationDEPARTMENT = Local.........    

I need to extract each of the specific items

I have little or no experience with in regex but I tried.

If I use something like

OFFICE_MANAGEMENT =\s*([a-z A-Z]*)\s*   

I get

Higher ManagementCONSTRUCTION 

as result. I may not alter the text 🙁

How can I make sure he takes everyting until the next item. I was thinking that he needs to read everything until the next word with more then one Captital letter but I have no idea how to do this.

So any help or suggestions will be more then welcome

Answer 1

Assuming that the keys are all-uppercase (plus possibly underscores):

List<String> matchList = new ArrayList<String>();
Pattern regex = Pattern.compile(
    "([\\p{Lu}_]+)  # one or more characters, all caps and underscores\n" +
    "\\s*=\\s*      # equals sign, possibly surrounded by whitespace\n" +
    "([^=]+)        # any letters except equals sign\n" +
    "(?<=\\p{Ll})   # but only until the last lowercase letter", 
    Pattern.COMMENTS);
Matcher regexMatcher = regex.matcher(subjectString);
while (regexMatcher.find()) {
    matchList.add(regexMatcher.group());
} 

separates your string into

OFFICE_MANAGEMENT =     Higher Management
CONSTRUCTION = Supervisor
CONTRACT_MANAGEMENT = Contract Manager
PROJECT =   Project Manager
LOCATION = User Specified Location
DEPARTMENT = Local

(and for each match, regexMatcher.group(1) contains the title and regexMatcher.group(2) contains the description.)