Java - Regex Match Multiple Words

Question

Lets say that you want to match a string with the following regex: ".when is (\w+)." - I am trying to get the event after 'when is'

I can get the event with matcher.group(index) but this doesnt work if the event is like Veteran's Day since it is two words. I am only able to get the first word after 'when is'

What regex should I use to get all of the words after 'when is'

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Also, lets say I want to capture someones bday like

'when is * birthday

How do I capture all of the text between is and birthday with regex?

Answer 1

You could try this:

^when is (.*)$

This will find a string that starts with when is and capture everything else to the end of the line.

The regex will return one group. You can access it like so:

String line = "when is Veteran's Day.";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("^when is (.*)$");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(line);
while (matcher.find()) {
    System.out.println("group 1: " + matcher.group(1));
    System.out.println("group 2: " + matcher.group(2));
}

And the output should be:

group 1: when is Veteran's Day.
group 2: Veteran's Day.

Answer 2

If you want to allow whitespace to be matched, you should explicitly allow whitespace.

([\w\s]+)

However, roydukkey's solution will work if you want to capture everything after when is.