Create array of regex matches

Question

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?

Answer 1

In Java 9, you can now use Matcher#results() to get a Stream<MatchResult> which you can use to get a list/array of matches.

import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import java.util.regex.MatchResult;

String[] matches = Pattern.compile("your regex here")
                          .matcher("string to search from here")
                          .results()
                          .map(MatchResult::group)
                          .toArray(String[]::new);
                    // or .collect(Collectors.toList())

Answer 2

Java makes regex too complicated and it does not follow the perl-style. Take a look at MentaRegex to see how you can accomplish that in a single line of Java code:

String[] matches = match("aa11bb22", "/(\\d+)/g" ); // => ["11", "22"]

Answer 3

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())

Answer 4

From the Official Regex Java Trails:

        Pattern pattern = 
        Pattern.compile(console.readLine("%nEnter your regex: "));

        Matcher matcher = 
        pattern.matcher(console.readLine("Enter input string to search: "));

        boolean found = false;
        while (matcher.find()) {
            console.format("I found the text \"%s\" starting at " +
               "index %d and ending at index %d.%n",
                matcher.group(), matcher.start(), matcher.end());
            found = true;
        }

Use find and insert the resulting group at your array / List / whatever.

Answer 5

        Set<String> keyList = new HashSet();
        Pattern regex = Pattern.compile("#\\{(.*?)\\}");
        Matcher matcher = regex.matcher("Content goes here");
        while(matcher.find()) {
            keyList.add(matcher.group(1)); 
        }
        return keyList;