Java RegEx: Just get a part of the matcher group

Question

I have a regex in Java:

Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(<string>text</string><string>.+</string>);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(ganzeDatei);
while (matcher.find()) {
    String string = matcher.group();
    ...

This works fine, but the output is something like

<string>text</string><string>Name</string>

But I just want this: Name

How can I do this?

Answer 1

Capture the text you want to return by wrapping it in parenthesis, so in this example your regex should become

<string>text</string><string>(.+)</string>

Then you can access the text that matched between the parenthesis with

matcher.group(1)

The no-arg group method you are calling, returns the entire portion of the input text that matches your pattern, whereas you want just a subsequence of that, which matches a capturing group (the parenthesis).

Answer 2

Then do this:

Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(<string>text</string><string>(.+)</string>);
        Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(ganzeDatei);
        while (matcher.find()) {
            String string = matcher.group(1);
            ...

Reference:

• Java Tutorial: Regex
• Pattern JavaDoc: Capturing Groups
• Matcher JavaDoc: Matcher.group(n)
• Matcher JavaDoc: Matcher.group()