Question

I have the following possible string patterns (whitespace is variable):

2-4 Jun
8-11 Jun
8 Jun-11 Jun
20-Jun
28 Jun-01 Jul
15-18 Jun

and I want to convert to Java dates, either one or two.

Any regex shortcuts ? Iam migrating a legacy excel spreadsheet if it makes a difference, the column is not formatted)

Answer 1

If I understood correctly your question, here is a snippet that should do it or at least give you the basics:

Matcher m = Pattern.compile("(\\d+)-(\\d+)?\\s*(Jan|Feb|Mar|Apr|May|Jun|Jul|Aug|Sep|Oct|Nov|Dec)").matcher(input);
while (m.find()) {
    if (m.groupCount()==3) {
        int first = Integer.valueOf(m.group(1));
        int second = Integer.valueOf(m.group(2));
        String month = m.group(3);
        // DO something here
    } else {
        int first = Integer.valueOf(m.group(1));
        String month = m.group(2);
        // Do something here
    }
}