How do I write simple character class regex?

By Wayan in Regex 0 Comment

A character class in the context of regular expression is a set of characters enclosed within a square brackets "[]". It specifies the characters that will successfully match a single character from the given input.

A simple class, the most basic form of character class, is formed simply by placing a set of characters side-by-side within square brackets. For example the regular expression b[ai]t will match the words "bit" or "bat" because the pattern defines a character class accepting either "i" or "a" as the middle character.

package org.kodejava.regex;

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

public class CharacterClassesSimpleClassDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Creating a simple class type of character classes.
        // The regular expression below will search all sequences
        // of string that begins with 'b', ends with 't' and have
        // a middle letter of 'a' or 'i'.
        String regex = "b[ai]t";

        // Compiles the pattern and obtains the matcher object.
        Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
        Matcher matcher =
                pattern.matcher("I'm a little bit afraid of bats " +
                        "but not cats.");

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

The program will print the following output:

Text "bit" found at 13 to 16.
Text "bat" found at 27 to 30.
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