Java Regular Expressions with whitespace

Question

I am trying to match a pattern like so:

TR @(any number of word characters go here):

So the pattern begins with TR then has one space then has @ and then has any characters and terminates with a :

Here is my regex: Pattern p = Pattern.compile("TR\\s@[\\w]+:");

It is working and for example will fail on:

TR @abcnews:

I think my error is with the whitespace.

This is certainly not the source of the mistake, but the [] around \\w are redundant. — Martin Ender
– Martin Ender, Commented Oct 30, 2012 at 23:13
Your regex matches your example string just fine. What is your problem? — Keppil
– Keppil, Commented Oct 30, 2012 at 23:15
Your regex also doesn't do exactly what you describe: it won't just match a single space after 'TR', but any whitespace character (space, tab, return, line feed, form feed, or vertical tab). You can use a literal space (' ') if you actually need a space. — Dmitri
– Dmitri, Commented Oct 31, 2012 at 0:03

Javier Diaz · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-30 23:13:48Z

1

Regex: TR\s+@(\w+):

This even backreferences the text, it accepts multiple spaces between the TR and @ so it would work pretty well for you, sir.

EDIT A java code that it's properly working:

Matcher ma = Pattern.compile("TR\\s+@(\\w+):").matcher("TR    @asdfasd:");
while (ma.find()) {
    System.out.println(ma.group(1));
}

answered Oct 30, 2012 at 23:13

Javier Diaz

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