Finding the nth instance of a pattern match using regex

Question

Given the String:

<td>4</td><td>punz of damage</td><td><img src='images/no.png'></img></td><td>May 26, 2015 10:28:12 PM</td><td>30</td><td>Nov 26, 2017 10:28:12 PM</td>

I would like to be able to return only the value between the second element.

How would I accomplish this? I have the following so far:

    private static Pattern p = Pattern.compile("<td>(.+?)</td>");

public static String getName(String in) {
    Matcher m = p.matcher(in);

    if (m.matches()) {
        return m.group(1);
    } else {
        return null;
    }
}

You shouldn't be using regexes on html. use a DOM parser. xpath makes this sort of thing beyond trivial. — Marc B
– Marc B, Commented May 28, 2015 at 18:02

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-28 18:04:02Z

1

Use matcher.find() in a loop instead of matches and keep a counter:

private static Pattern p = Pattern.compile("<td>(.+?)</td>");

public static String getName(String in) {
    Matcher m = p.matcher(in);

    for (i=0; i<1 && m.find(); i++);

    if (i==0) {
        return null;
    } else {
        return m.group(1);
    }
}

Caution: Parsing HTML/XML using regex can be error prone.

answered May 28, 2015 at 18:04

anubhava

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1 Comment

Adam Chubbuck Over a year ago

Thank you! I knew there had to be an easy way of accomplishing what I needed. I believe it's time I take another crack and reading over the documentation and understanding it.

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