How to capture multiple groups in regex?

Question

I am trying to capture following word, number:

stxt:usa,city:14

I can capture usa and 14 using:

stxt:(.*?),city:(\d.*)$

However, when text is;

stxt:usa

The regex did not work. I tried to apply or condition using | but it did not work.

stxt:(.*?),|city:(\d.*)$

Maybe ^stxt:(.*?)(?:,city:(\d.*))?$? Or do you want to also support city:14 like strings with the same pattern? Split with a comma, and then with :, it will be easier. — Wiktor Stribiżew
– Wiktor Stribiżew, Commented Sep 6, 2016 at 14:40
This format of data might be better handled with some split, see also google.github.io/guava/releases/19.0/api/docs/com/google/common/… — user180100
– user180100, Commented Sep 6, 2016 at 14:43
@WiktorStribiżew yes, I want to support individual query both city and stxt. The regex you provided works for stxt but I am not able to understand it! — kinkajou
– kinkajou, Commented Sep 6, 2016 at 14:44

Wiktor Stribiżew · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-06 15:03:42Z

8

You may use

(stxt|city):([^,]+)

See the regex demo (note the \n added only for the sake of the demo, you do not need it in real life).

Pattern details:

(stxt|city) - either a stxt or city substrings (you may add \b before the ( to only match a whole word) (Group 1)
: - a colon
([^,]+) - 1 or more characters other than a comma (Group 2).

Java demo:

String s = "stxt:usa,city:14";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("(stxt|city):([^,]+)");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(s);
while (matcher.find()){
    System.out.println(matcher.group(1));
    System.out.println(matcher.group(2));
}

answered Sep 6, 2016 at 15:03

Wiktor Stribiżew

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Comments

Samuel · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-06 14:57:47Z

0

Looking at your string, you could also find the word/digits after the colon.

:(\w+)

answered Sep 6, 2016 at 14:57

Samuel

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