Java Regex not matching?

Question

I have this code, but it does not seem to be working.

Pattern pattern=Pattern.compile("IMGURSESSION=([0-9a-zA-Z]*);");
Matcher matcher=pattern.matcher("IMGURSESSION=blahblah; path=/; domain=.imgur.com");
System.out.println(matcher.matches());

Would anyone know why?

Answer 1

Matcher#matches() method attempts to match the entire input sequence against the pattern.

Pattern.compile("IMGURSESSION=([0-9a-zA-Z]*);.*$"); //true
Pattern.compile("IMGURSESSION=([0-9a-zA-Z]*);"); //false

Answer 2

the matches Method match against the entire input string.

if you will match only a subsequence you can use the find() method.

the 3 different ways to match with a matcher are explained in the java docs: http://download.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Matcher.html