How do I do boundary matching in regex?

By Wayan in Regex 0 Comment

If you want to find the occurrence of a pattern in more precise position, for example at the beginning or the end of line, you can use boundary matcher. Boundary matcher are special sequences in a regular expression when you want to match a particular boundary.

Here are the list:

Matcher Matches
^ The beginning of line
$ The end of line
b A word boundary
B A non word boundary
A The beginning of the input
G The end of previous match
Z The end of the input but for the final terminator, if any
z The end of the input

Some examples:

  • ^Java will find the word Java at the beginning of any line.
  • Java$ will find the word Java at the end of any line.
  • \bJ..a\b will find the word beginning with 'J' and ending with 'a'.
package org.kodejava.regex;

import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;

public class BoundaryMatcherDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Define regex to find the word "dog" at the end of the line.
        String regex = "dog$";

        // Compiles the pattern and obtains the matcher object.
        Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
        Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(
                "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog");

        // Find every match and print it
        while (matcher.find()) {
            System.out.format("Text \"%s\" found at %d to %d.%n",
                    matcher.group(), matcher.start(), matcher.end());
        }
    }
}

This program output the following result:

Text "dog" found at 40 to 43.
Wayan
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