I want a pattern to match *instance*stuck* in a sentence, the number of words between instance and stuck can be 1 to 3. How can I write this pattern with regular expression in Java?
For example:
You can try to test it this way
String s1 = "The instance just got stuck";
String s2 = "The instance in the server 123 at xyz is stuck";
System.out.println(s1.matches(".*instance (\\w+\\s+){1,3}stuck.*")); // true
System.out.println(s2.matches(".*instance (\\w+\\s+){1,3}stuck.*")); // false
\\w matches any alphanumeric character, it is like [a-zA-Z0-9]
\\s is class for spaces
+ mean that element before + must be found at least one time.
Something like this:
instance(\\w\\s){1,3}stuck
Look here for more details about limiting repetitions of words.
\\w will only match one word character.try with this: instance( \w+){1,3} stuck
Perhaps:
instance (\w* ){0,3}stuck
This will also match wacky whitespace:
instance\s*(\w*\s*){0,3}stuck
