Java regexto match tuples

Question

I need to extract tuples out of string

e.g. (1,1,A)(2,1,B)(1,1,C)(1,1,D)

and thought some regex like:

String tupleRegex = "(\\(\\d,\\d,\\w\\))*";

would work but it just gives me the first tuple. What would be proper regex to match all the tuples in the strings.

Answer 1

Remove the * from the regex and iterate over the matches using a java.util.regex.Matcher:

String input = "(1,1,A)(2,1,B)(1,1,C)(1,1,D)";
String tupleRegex = "(\\(\\d,\\d,\\w\\))";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(tupleRegex);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(input);
while(matcher.find()) {
    System.out.println(matcher.group());
}

The * character is a quantifier that matches zero or more tuples. Hence your original regex would match the entire input string.