Remove part of String following regex match in Java

Question

I want to remove a part of a string following what matches my regex.

I am trying to make a TV show organization program and I want to cut off anything in the name following the season and episode marker in the form SXXEXX where X is a digit.

I grasped the regex model fairly easily to create "[Ss]\d\d[Ee]\d\d" which should match properly.

I want to use the Matcher method end() to get the last index in the string of the match but it does not seem to be working as I think it should.

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("[Ss]\\d\\d[Ee]\\d\\d");
Matcher m = p.matcher(name);

if(m.matches())
    return name.substring(0, m.end());

If someone could tell me why this doesn't work and suggest a proper way to do it, that would be great. Thanks.

Answer 1

matches() tries to match the whole string again the pattern. If you want to find your pattern within a string, use find(), find() will search for the next match in the string.

Your code could be quite the same:

if(m.find())
    return name.substring(0, m.end());

Answer 2

matches matches the entire string, try find()

You could capture the name as well:

String name = "a movie S01E02 with some stuff";
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(.*[Ss]\\d\\d[Ee]\\d\\d)");
Matcher m = p.matcher(name);

if (m.find())
    System.out.println(m.group());
else
    System.out.println("No match");

Will capture and print:

a movie S01E02