Question

I have several strings in the rough form:

[some number with one or 2 digits] [some text] [a text which is ABC or BC] [some text]

String test = "12testABCtest";
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("([\\d]{1,2})([\\w]*)(ABC|BC)([\\w]*)");

But it gives me always “BC in the 3rd group instead of ABC. ( as it include the A in the previous group )

Do you have any idea how to do it?

thank you,

Answer 1

You can make the text match non-greedy:

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("([\\d]{1,2})([\\w]*?)(A?BC)([\\w]*)");

Reference:

Reluctant quantifiers
-----------------------------
X??     X, once or not at all
X*?     X, zero or more times
X+?     X, one or more times

Source: Pattern javadoc: Reluctant quantifiers

Basically: reluctant quantifiers will match as little as possible, as opposed to the default greedy quantifiers that will match as much as possible. You get a reluctant quantifier by appending a ? to another quantifier.