Question

Why is this false in Java?

Pattern.matches("\\A[/0-9]","2 z CEA|B2 z E^")

edit:
I tried: (so that I can also catch new lines)

Pattern.matches("\\A[/0-9][.\\s]*?","2 z\n CEA|B2 z E^)

but it doesn’t work. How can I catch something like this?

Answer 1

The problem is that .matches() compares against the entire string, so the pattern must match it. Try this:

Pattern.matches("\\A[/0-9].*?","2 z CEA|B2 z E^")

The .*? allows for more stuff to be at the end of the line. Using *? for the quantifier makes it select the minimum amount of characters.