CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexscala
k r
k r

Reputation: 409

scala regex weird behavior

scala> val p = "ab|ba|(ab)*a|(ba)*b".r
p: scala.util.matching.Regex = ab|ba|(ab)*a|(ba)*b

scala> val m = p.pattern.matcher _
m: java.lang.CharSequence => java.util.regex.Matcher = <function1>

scala> m("aa").matches
res9: Boolean = false

scala> p.findAllIn("aa").toList
res10: List[String] = List(a, a)

"aa" should not be matched, as per res9. But res10 says there are 2 matches. How do you explain this ?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 120

Answers (2)

Daniel C. Sobral
Daniel C. Sobral

Reputation: 297185

You are asking two different things:

When you use m("aa").matches, you are asking whether the whole string aa corresponds to the pattern m.

When you use p.findAllIn("aa").toList, you are asking whether there are substrings of aa that correspond to the pattern m.

So, yes, there are substrings that match m, but the full string aa itself doesn't.

Upvotes: 4

Qtax
Qtax

Reputation: 33908

aa will be matched because you use find.

(ab)*a will match a.

Maybe you want an expression like:

^(?:ab|ba|(?:ab)*a|(?:ba)*b)$

Upvotes: 4

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