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Create array of regex matches

Asked 2011-05-16T16:28:27.987
224

In Java, I am trying to return all regex matches to an array but it seems that you can only check whether the pattern matches something or not (boolean).

How can I use a regex match to form an array of all string matching a regex expression in a given string?

java regex
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16

Here's a simple example:

Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regexPattern);
List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
Matcher m = pattern.matcher(input);
while (m.find()) {
    list.add(m.group());
}

(if you have more capturing groups, you can refer to them by their index as an argument of the group method. If you need an array, then use list.toArray())

answered 2011-05-16T16:30:58.997

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