Develop Reference

How to find the words starting after line breaks, using regex, Java?

I have an input string, consisting of several lines, e.g.:
When I was younger
I never needed
And I was always OK
but it was a long Time Ago
The problem is to invert first letters of all the words which length is more than 3. That is an output must be the following:
when I Was Younger
I Never Needed
and I Was Always OK
But it Was a Long time ago
There is my code:
import java.util.regex.*;
public class Part3_1 {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String str = "When I was younger\r\nI never needed\r\nAnd I was always OK\r\nbut it was a long Time Ago";
System.out.println(convert(str));
}
public static String convert(String str) {
String result = "";
String[] strings = str.split(" ");
String regexLowerCase = "\\b[a-z]{3,}\\b";
String regexLowerCaseInitial = "(\\r\\n)[a-z]{3,}\\b";
String regexUpperCase = "\\b([A-Z][a-z]{2,})+\\b";
String regexUpperCaseInitial = "(\\r\\n)([A-Z][a-z]{2,})\\b";
Pattern patternLowerCase = Pattern.compile(regexLowerCase, Pattern.MULTILINE);
Pattern patternUpperCase = Pattern.compile(regexUpperCase, Pattern.MULTILINE);
Pattern patternLowerCaseInitial = Pattern.compile(regexLowerCaseInitial, Pattern.MULTILINE);
Pattern patternUpperCaseInitial = Pattern.compile(regexUpperCaseInitial, Pattern.MULTILINE);
for (int i = 0; i < strings.length; i++) {
Matcher matcherLowerCase = patternLowerCase.matcher(strings[i]);
Matcher matcherUpperCase = patternUpperCase.matcher(strings[i]);
Matcher matcherLowerCaseInitial = patternLowerCaseInitial.matcher(strings[i]);
Matcher matcherUpperCaseInitial = patternUpperCaseInitial.matcher(strings[i]);
char[] words = strings[i].toCharArray();
if (matcherLowerCase.find() || matcherLowerCaseInitial.find()) {
char temp = Character.toUpperCase(words[0]);
words[0] = temp;
result += new String(words);
} else if (matcherUpperCase.find() || matcherUpperCaseInitial.find()) {
char temp = Character.toLowerCase(words[0]);
words[0] = temp;
result += new String(words);
} else {
result += new String(words);
}
if (i < strings.length - 1) {
result += " ";
}
}
return result;
}
}
Here:
"\\b[a-z]{3,}\\b" is a regular expression, selecting all words in lower case which length is 3 or more symbols,
"\\b([A-Z][a-z]{2,})+\\b" is a regular expression, selecting all words starting from capital letter which length is 3 or more symbols.
Both regular expressions works properly but when we have a line breaks - they do not work. The output of my program execution is following:
when I Was Younger
I Never Needed
And I Was Always OK
but it Was a Long Time ago
As I understood, these regular expressions cannot select words And and but from needed\r\nAnd and OK\r\nbut respectively.
To fix this bug I tried to add new regular expressions "(\\r\\n)[a-z]{3,}\\b" and "(\\r\\n)([A-Z][a-z]{2,})\\b", but they do not work.
How to compose the regular expressions, selecting words after line breaks?

One option would be to split the string on a word break (\b) instead, and then pass the white space through to the final string in the strings array. This removes the need to have separate regex for the different situations, and also the need to add back space characters. This will give you the results you want:
public static String convert(String str) {
String result = "";
String[] strings = str.split("\\b");
String regexLowerCase = "^[a-z]{3,}";
String regexUpperCase = "^[A-Z][a-z]{2,}+";
Pattern patternLowerCase = Pattern.compile(regexLowerCase, Pattern.MULTILINE);
Pattern patternUpperCase = Pattern.compile(regexUpperCase, Pattern.MULTILINE);
for (int i = 0; i < strings.length; i++) {
Matcher matcherLowerCase = patternLowerCase.matcher(strings[i]);
Matcher matcherUpperCase = patternUpperCase.matcher(strings[i]);
char[] words = strings[i].toCharArray();
if (matcherLowerCase.find()) {
char temp = Character.toUpperCase(words[0]);
words[0] = temp;
result += new String(words);
} else if (matcherUpperCase.find()) {
char temp = Character.toLowerCase(words[0]);
words[0] = temp;
result += new String(words);
} else {
result += new String(words);
}
}
return result;
}
Output:
when I Was Younger
I Never Needed
and I Was Always OK
But it Was a Long time ago
Demo on rextester

Regex for replacing specific characters before and after specific substring

I am going through the Java CodingBat exercises. Here is the one I have just completed:
Given a string and a non-empty word string, return a string made of each char just before and just after every appearance of the word in the string. Ignore cases where there is no char before or after the word, and a char may be included twice if it is between two words.
My code, which works:
public String wordEnds(String str, String word){
String s = "";
String n = " " + str + " "; //To avoid OOB exceptions
int sL = str.length();
int wL = word.length();
int nL = n.length();
int i = 1;
while (i < nL - 1) {
if (n.substring(i, i + wL).equals(word)) {
s += n.charAt(i - 1);
s += n.charAt(i + wL);
i += wL;
} else {
i++;
}
}
s = s.replaceAll("\\s", "");
return s;
}
My question is about regular expressions. I want to know if the above is doable with a regex statement, and if so, how?

You can use Java regex objects Pattern and Matcher for doing this.
public class CharBeforeAndAfterSubstring {
public static String wordEnds(String str, String word) {
java.util.regex.Pattern p = java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(word);
java.util.regex.Matcher m = p.matcher(str);
StringBuilder beforeAfter = new StringBuilder();
for (int startIndex = 0; m.find(startIndex); startIndex = m.start() + 1) {
if (m.start() - 1 > -1)
beforeAfter.append(Character.toChars(str.codePointAt(m.start() - 1)));
if (m.end() < str.length())
beforeAfter.append(Character.toChars(str.codePointAt(m.end())));
}
return beforeAfter.toString();
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
String x = "abcXY1XYijk";
String y = "XY";
System.out.println(wordEnds(x, y));
}
}

(?=(.|^)XY(.|$))
Try this.Just grab the captures and remove the None or empty values.See demo.
https://regex101.com/r/sJ9gM7/73

To get a string containing the character before and after each occurrence of one string within the other, you could use the regex expression:
"(^|.)" + str + "(.|$)"
and then you could iterate through the groups and concatenate them.
This expression will look for (^|.), either the start of the string ^ or any character ., followed by str value, followed by (.|$), any character . or the end of the string $.
You could try something like this:
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
public String wordEnds(String str, String word){
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(.)" + str + "(.)");
Matcher m = p.matcher(word);
String result = "";
int i = 0;
while(m.find()) {
result += m.group(i++);
}
return result;
}

split the string using regex when there is no delimeters using java

I have a string eg : DIGITAL SPORTS$8.95HD AO$9.95UCC REC$1.28RENTAL FEE$7.00LOCAL FRANCHISE$4.67
Now I want to split the string and create a map as
DIGITAL SPORTS $8.95
HD AO $9.95
UCC REC $1.28
RENTAL FEE $7.00
LOCAL FRANCHISE $4.67
I wrote a regular expression to split the string. Please find below piece of code
private static String ledgerString = "DIGITAL SPORTS$8.95HD AO$9.95UCC REC$1.28RENTAL FEE$7.00LOCAL FRANCHISE$4.67";
private static Pattern pattern1 = Pattern.compile("([[a-zA-Z ]*\\$[0-9]*.[0-9][0-9]]*)");
private static Matcher matcher = null;
public static void main(String[] args) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
matcher = pattern1.matcher(ledgerString.trim());
if (matcher.find()) {
System.out.println(matcher.group(1));
}
}
could you please some one help me how to extract the data from the above string

Your pattern in group 1 is in character class [...] which is probably now that you ware trying to do. Maybe change your pattern to
Pattern.compile("([a-zA-Z ]*)(\\$[0-9]*.[0-9][0-9]*)");
and use it like this
while (matcher.find()) {
System.out.println(matcher.group(1)+" "+matcher.group(2));
}
Also since Java7 you can name groups (?<name>...) so this is also possible
Pattern.compile("(?<name>[a-zA-Z ]*)(?<price>\\$[0-9]*.[0-9][0-9]*)");
while (matcher.find()) {
System.out.println(matcher.group("name")+" "+matcher.group("price"));
}
Output
DIGITAL SPORTS $8.95
HD AO $9.95
UCC REC $1.28
RENTAL FEE $7.00
LOCAL FRANCHISE $4.67

private static String ledgerString = "DIGITAL SPORTS$8.95HD AO$9.95UCC REC$1.28RENTAL FEE$7.00LOCAL FRANCHISE$4.67";
private static Pattern pattern1 = Pattern.compile("([a-zA-Z ]+)(\\$[0-9]*\\.[0-9][0-9])");
private static Matcher matcher = null;
public static void main(String[] args) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
matcher = pattern1.matcher(ledgerString.trim());
while (matcher.find()) {
System.out.println(matcher.group(1) + " " + matcher.group(2));
}
}

Try this:
The Regex: (?:(.+?)(\$\d*(?:\.\d+)?))
String regex = "(?:(.+?)(\\$\\d*(?:\\.\\d+)?))";
Demo

Maybe you could replace all occurrences of the "$" symbol with ",$" (comma dollar) symbol. After which you may split it using "," (comma). Do something like:
ledgerString = ledgerString.replaceAll("$", ",$");
String[] tokens = ledgerString.split(",");

The regex you want to use is one that matches each String that you are interested in. Therefore you want to use
Pattern.compile("([a-zA-Z]\$[0-9].[0-9][0-9])");
as this identifies each 'line' you're interested in. You can then use split("$") on each line to separate description from price.

Here is, yet another way of doing that:
String mainString = "DIGITAL SPORTS$8.95HD AO$9.95UCC REC$1.28RENTAL FEE$7.00LOCAL FRANCHISE$4.67";
String[] splittedArray = mainString.split("[0-9][A-Z]");
int currentLength = 0;
for(int i =0; i < splittedArray.length; i++) {
String splitedString;
if(i == 0) {
char endChar = mainString.charAt(splittedArray[i].length());
splitedString = splittedArray[i] + endChar;
currentLength += splittedArray[i].length();
}
else if(i == splittedArray.length -1){
char beginChar = mainString.charAt(currentLength + 1);
splitedString = beginChar + splittedArray[i];
}
else {
char beginChar = mainString.charAt(currentLength + 1);
char endChar = mainString.charAt(currentLength+splittedArray[i].length()+2);
splitedString = beginChar + splittedArray[i] + endChar;
currentLength += splittedArray[i].length()+2;
}
System.out.println(splitedString);
}

How to get a string between two characters?

I have a string,
String s = "test string (67)";
I want to get the no 67 which is the string between ( and ).
Can anyone please tell me how to do this?

There's probably a really neat RegExp, but I'm noob in that area, so instead...
String s = "test string (67)";
s = s.substring(s.indexOf("(") + 1);
s = s.substring(0, s.indexOf(")"));
System.out.println(s);

A very useful solution to this issue which doesn't require from you to do the indexOf is using Apache Commons libraries.
StringUtils.substringBetween(s, "(", ")");
This method will allow you even handle even if there multiple occurrences of the closing string which wont be easy by looking for indexOf closing string.
You can download this library from here:
https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.commons/commons-lang3/3.4

Try it like this
String s="test string(67)";
String requiredString = s.substring(s.indexOf("(") + 1, s.indexOf(")"));
The method's signature for substring is:
s.substring(int start, int end);

By using regular expression :
String s = "test string (67)";
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\(.*?\\)");
Matcher m = p.matcher(s);
if(m.find())
System.out.println(m.group().subSequence(1, m.group().length()-1));

Java supports Regular Expressions, but they're kind of cumbersome if you actually want to use them to extract matches. I think the easiest way to get at the string you want in your example is to just use the Regular Expression support in the String class's replaceAll method:
String x = "test string (67)".replaceAll(".*\\(|\\).*", "");
// x is now the String "67"
This simply deletes everything up-to-and-including the first (, and the same for the ) and everything thereafter. This just leaves the stuff between the parenthesis.
However, the result of this is still a String. If you want an integer result instead then you need to do another conversion:
int n = Integer.parseInt(x);
// n is now the integer 67

In a single line, I suggest:
String input = "test string (67)";
input = input.subString(input.indexOf("(")+1, input.lastIndexOf(")"));
System.out.println(input);`

You could use apache common library's StringUtils to do this.
import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;
...
String s = "test string (67)";
s = StringUtils.substringBetween(s, "(", ")");
....

Test String test string (67) from which you need to get the String which is nested in-between two Strings.
String str = "test string (67) and (77)", open = "(", close = ")";
Listed some possible ways: Simple Generic Solution:
String subStr = str.substring(str.indexOf( open ) + 1, str.indexOf( close ));
System.out.format("String[%s] Parsed IntValue[%d]\n", subStr, Integer.parseInt( subStr ));
Apache Software Foundation commons.lang3.
StringUtils class substringBetween() function gets the String that is nested in between two Strings. Only the first match is returned.
String substringBetween = StringUtils.substringBetween(subStr, open, close);
System.out.println("Commons Lang3 : "+ substringBetween);
Replaces the given String, with the String which is nested in between two Strings. #395
Pattern with Regular-Expressions: (\()(.*?)(\)).*
The Dot Matches (Almost) Any Character
.? = .{0,1}, .* = .{0,}, .+ = .{1,}
String patternMatch = patternMatch(generateRegex(open, close), str);
System.out.println("Regular expression Value : "+ patternMatch);
Regular-Expression with the utility class RegexUtils and some functions.
Pattern.DOTALL: Matches any character, including a line terminator.
Pattern.MULTILINE: Matches entire String from the start^ till end$ of the input sequence.
public static String generateRegex(String open, String close) {
return "(" + RegexUtils.escapeQuotes(open) + ")(.*?)(" + RegexUtils.escapeQuotes(close) + ").*";
}
public static String patternMatch(String regex, CharSequence string) {
final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.DOTALL);
final Matcher matcher = pattern .matcher(string);
String returnGroupValue = null;
if (matcher.find()) { // while() { Pattern.MULTILINE }
System.out.println("Full match: " + matcher.group(0));
System.out.format("Character Index [Start:End]«[%d:%d]\n",matcher.start(),matcher.end());
for (int i = 1; i <= matcher.groupCount(); i++) {
System.out.println("Group " + i + ": " + matcher.group(i));
if( i == 2 ) returnGroupValue = matcher.group( 2 );
}
}
return returnGroupValue;
}

String s = "test string (67)";
int start = 0; // '(' position in string
int end = 0; // ')' position in string
for(int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
if(s.charAt(i) == '(') // Looking for '(' position in string
start = i;
else if(s.charAt(i) == ')') // Looking for ')' position in string
end = i;
}
String number = s.substring(start+1, end); // you take value between start and end

String result = s.substring(s.indexOf("(") + 1, s.indexOf(")"));

public String getStringBetweenTwoChars(String input, String startChar, String endChar) {
try {
int start = input.indexOf(startChar);
if (start != -1) {
int end = input.indexOf(endChar, start + startChar.length());
if (end != -1) {
return input.substring(start + startChar.length(), end);
}
}
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return input; // return null; || return "" ;
}
Usage :
String input = "test string (67)";
String startChar = "(";
String endChar = ")";
String output = getStringBetweenTwoChars(input, startChar, endChar);
System.out.println(output);
// Output: "67"

Another way of doing using split method
public static void main(String[] args) {
String s = "test string (67)";
String[] ss;
ss= s.split("\\(");
ss = ss[1].split("\\)");
System.out.println(ss[0]);
}

Use Pattern and Matcher
public class Chk {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String s = "test string (67)";
ArrayList<String> arL = new ArrayList<String>();
ArrayList<String> inL = new ArrayList<String>();
Pattern pat = Pattern.compile("\\(\\w+\\)");
Matcher mat = pat.matcher(s);
while (mat.find()) {
arL.add(mat.group());
System.out.println(mat.group());
}
for (String sx : arL) {
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(\\w+)");
Matcher m = p.matcher(sx);
while (m.find()) {
inL.add(m.group());
System.out.println(m.group());
}
}
System.out.println(inL);
}
}

The "generic" way of doing this is to parse the string from the start, throwing away all the characters before the first bracket, recording the characters after the first bracket, and throwing away the characters after the second bracket.
I'm sure there's a regex library or something to do it though.

The least generic way I found to do this with Regex and Pattern / Matcher classes:
String text = "test string (67)";
String START = "\\("; // A literal "(" character in regex
String END = "\\)"; // A literal ")" character in regex
// Captures the word(s) between the above two character(s)
String pattern = START + "(\w+)" + END;
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(pattern);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(text);
while(matcher.find()) {
System.out.println(matcher.group()
.replace(START, "").replace(END, ""));
}
This may help for more complex regex problems where you want to get the text between two set of characters.

The other possible solution is to use lastIndexOf where it will look for character or String from backward.
In my scenario, I had following String and I had to extract <<UserName>>
1QAJK-WKJSH_MyApplication_Extract_<<UserName>>.arc
So, indexOf and StringUtils.substringBetween was not helpful as they start looking for character from beginning.
So, I used lastIndexOf
String str = "1QAJK-WKJSH_MyApplication_Extract_<<UserName>>.arc";
String userName = str.substring(str.lastIndexOf("_") + 1, str.lastIndexOf("."));
And, it gives me
<<UserName>>

String s = "test string (67)";
System.out.println(s.substring(s.indexOf("(")+1,s.indexOf(")")));

Something like this:
public static String innerSubString(String txt, char prefix, char suffix) {
if(txt != null && txt.length() > 1) {
int start = 0, end = 0;
char token;
for(int i = 0; i < txt.length(); i++) {
token = txt.charAt(i);
if(token == prefix)
start = i;
else if(token == suffix)
end = i;
}
if(start + 1 < end)
return txt.substring(start+1, end);
}
return null;
}

This is a simple use \D+ regex and job done.
This select all chars except digits, no need to complicate
/\D+/

it will return original string if no match regex
var iAm67 = "test string (67)".replaceFirst("test string \\((.*)\\)", "$1");
add matches to the code
String str = "test string (67)";
String regx = "test string \\((.*)\\)";
if (str.matches(regx)) {
var iAm67 = str.replaceFirst(regx, "$1");
}
---EDIT---
i use https://www.freeformatter.com/java-regex-tester.html#ad-output to test regex.
turn out it's better to add ? after * for less match. something like this:
String str = "test string (67)(69)";
String regx1 = "test string \\((.*)\\).*";
String regx2 = "test string \\((.*?)\\).*";
String ans1 = str.replaceFirst(regx1, "$1");
String ans2 = str.replaceFirst(regx2, "$1");
System.out.println("ans1:"+ans1+"\nans2:"+ans2);
// ans1:67)(69
// ans2:67

String s = "(69)";
System.out.println(s.substring(s.lastIndexOf('(')+1,s.lastIndexOf(')')));

Little extension to top (MadProgrammer) answer
public static String getTextBetween(final String wholeString, final String str1, String str2){
String s = wholeString.substring(wholeString.indexOf(str1) + str1.length());
s = s.substring(0, s.indexOf(str2));
return s;
}

How to flip two words in a string, Java

So say I have a string called x that = "Hello world". I want to somehow make it so that it will flip those two words and instead display "world Hello". I am not very good with loops or arrays and obviously am a beginner. Could I accomplish this somehow by splitting my string? If so, how? If not, how could I do this? Help would be appreciated, thanks!

1) split string into String array on space.
String myArray[] = x.split(" ");
2) Create new string with words in reverse order from array.
String newString = myArray[1] + " " + myArray[0];
Bonus points for using a StringBuilder instead of concatenation.

String abc = "Hello world";
String cba = abc.replace( "Hello world", "world Hello" );
abc = "This is a longer string. Hello world. My String";
cba = abc.replace( "Hello world", "world Hello" );
If you want, you can explode your string as well:
String[] pieces = abc.split(" ");
for( int i=0; i<pieces.length-1; ++i )
if( pieces[i]=="Hello" && pieces[i+1]=="world" ) swap(pieces[i], pieces[i+1]);
There are many other ways you can do it too. Be careful for capitalization. You can use .toUpperCase() in your if statements and then make your matching conditionals uppercase, but leave the results with their original capitalization, etc.

Here's the solution:
import java.util.*;
public class ReverseWords {
public String reverseWords(String phrase) {
List<String> wordList = Arrays.asList(phrase.split("[ ]"));
Collections.reverse(wordList);
StringBuilder sbReverseString = new StringBuilder();
for(String word: wordList) {
sbReverseString.append(word + " ");
}
return sbReverseString.substring(0, sbReverseString.length() - 1);
}
}
The above solution was coded by me, for Google Code Jam and is also blogged here: Reverse Words - GCJ 2010

Just use this method, call it and pass the string that you want to split out
static String reverseWords(String str) {
// Specifying the pattern to be searched
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("\\s");
// splitting String str with a pattern
// (i.e )splitting the string whenever their
// is whitespace and store in temp array.
String[] temp = pattern.split(str);
String result = "";
// Iterate over the temp array and store
// the string in reverse order.
for (int i = 0; i < temp.length; i++) {
if (i == temp.length - 1) {
result = temp[i] + result;
} else {
result = " " + temp[i] + result;
}
}
return result;
}

Depending on your exact requirements, you may want to split on other forms of whitespace (tabs, multiple spaces, etc.):
static Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(\\S+)(\\s+)(\\S+)");
public String flipWords(String in)
{
Matcher m = p.matcher(in);
if (m.matches()) {
// reverse the groups we found
return m.group(3) + m.group(2) + m.group(1);
} else {
return in;
}
}
If you want to get more complex see the docs for Pattern http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html

Try something as follows:
String input = "how is this";
List<String> words = Arrays.asList(input.split(" "));
Collections.reverse(words);
String result = "";
for(String word : words) {
if(!result.isEmpty()) {
result += " ";
}
result += word;
}
System.out.println(result);
Output:
this is how

Too much?
private static final Pattern WORD = Pattern.compile("^(\\p{L}+)");
private static final Pattern NUMBER = Pattern.compile("^(\\p{N}+)");
private static final Pattern SPACE = Pattern.compile("^(\\p{Z}+)");
public static String reverseWords(final String text) {
final StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(text.length());
final Matcher wordMatcher = WORD.matcher(text);
final Matcher numberMatcher = NUMBER.matcher(text);
final Matcher spaceMatcher = SPACE.matcher(text);
int offset = 0;
while (offset < text.length()) {
wordMatcher.region(offset, text.length());
numberMatcher.region(offset, text.length());
spaceMatcher.region(offset, text.length());
if (wordMatcher.find()) {
final String word = wordMatcher.group();
sb.insert(0, reverseCamelCase(word));
offset = wordMatcher.end();
} else if (numberMatcher.find()) {
sb.insert(0, numberMatcher.group());
offset = numberMatcher.end();
} else if (spaceMatcher.find()) {
sb.insert(0, spaceMatcher.group(0));
offset = spaceMatcher.end();
} else {
sb.insert(0, text.charAt(offset++));
}
}
return sb.toString();
}
private static final Pattern CASE_REVERSAL = Pattern
.compile("(\\p{Lu})(\\p{Ll}*)(\\p{Ll})$");
private static String reverseCamelCase(final String word) {
final StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(word.length());
final Matcher caseReversalMatcher = CASE_REVERSAL.matcher(word);
int wordEndOffset = word.length();
while (wordEndOffset > 0 && caseReversalMatcher.find()) {
sb.insert(0, caseReversalMatcher.group(3).toUpperCase());
sb.insert(0, caseReversalMatcher.group(2));
sb.insert(0, caseReversalMatcher.group(1).toLowerCase());
wordEndOffset = caseReversalMatcher.start();
caseReversalMatcher.region(0, wordEndOffset);
}
sb.insert(0, word.substring(0, wordEndOffset));
return sb.toString();
}