Question

I need a help finding java regex pattern to get one query information from the URI.
For instance URI here is

"GET /6.2/calculateroute.xml?routeattributes=sm,wp,lg,bb&legattributes=mn&maneuverattributes=ac,po,tt,le,-rn,-sp,-di,no,nu,nr,sh&instructionFormat=html&language=en_US&mode=fastest;car;traffic:default&waypoint0=37.79548,-122.392025&waypoint1=36.0957717,-115.1745167&resolution=786&app_id=D4KnHBzGYyJtbM8lVfYX&token=TRKB7vnBguWLam5rdWshTA HTTP/1.1"

I need to extract 4 value out of it which I manage to do it:

GET

/6.2/calculateroute.xml

routeattributes=sm,wp,lg,bb&legattributes=mn&maneuverattributes=ac,po,tt,le,-rn,-sp,-di,no,nu,nr,sh&instructionFormat=html&language=en_US&mode=fastest;car;traffic:default&waypoint0=37.79548,-122.392025&waypoint1=36.0957717,-115.1745167&resolution=786&app_id=D4KnHBzGYyJtbM8lVfYX&token=TRKB7vnBguWLam5rdWshTA

HTTP/1.1

Now the question is how do I write a regex for app_id value from the query string. Note app_id do not appear in all the pattern, so it should be generic and regex should not fail if app_id is missing. Please help…

Answer 1

Your question can be simplified to: “How do I extract an optional query parameter from a string”. Here’s how:

String appId = input.replaceAll("(.*(app_id=(\\w+)).*)|.*", "$3");

The appId variable will contain the app_id value if it’s present or be blank otherwise.

Here’s some test code with the code bundled as a utility method:

public static String getParameterValue(String input, String parameter) {
    return input.replaceAll("(.*("+parameter+"=(\\w+)).*)|.*", "$3"));
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    String input1 = "foo=bar&app_id=D4KnHBzGYyJtbM8lVfYX&x=y";
    String input2 = "foo=bar&XXXXXX=D4KnHBzGYyJtbM8lVfYX&x=y";

    System.out.println("app_id1:" + getParameterValue(input1, "app_id"));
    System.out.println("app_id2:" + getParameterValue(input2, "app_id"));
}

Output:

app_id1:D4KnHBzGYyJtbM8lVfYX
app_id2: