Question

This one is so simple, but seems to be stumping me.

I have the following text line:

for        months to   

I am trying to match it with the following regex:

for\s*months\s*to

I read this regex as:

1. Must have the word “for”
2. Followed by any amount of space
3. Followed by the word “months”
4. Followed by any amount of space
5. Followed by the word “to”

And to me, this should match, but it doesnt. Can anyone see where I might have gone wrong.

Answer 1

You most likely have preceding or succeeding whitespace. Using String.matches(String regex) you must match the entire string.

Try "\\s*for\\s+months\\s+to\\s*"