CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaregex
Pradeep
Pradeep

Reputation: 99

How to get string between bracket ] and [

I am trying to get text "STARTS WITH" from following string [DOC TEXT] STARTS WITH [foo] using regex. I have used following code for this.

String expertWhereClause = (String) formFields
                    .get(Constants.EXPERT_SEARCH_WHERECLAUSE);
            String delims = "\\[(.*?)\\]";
            String[] tokens = expertWhereClause.split(delims);

but am getting following string "[, STARTS WITH ]". I just want "STARTS WITH".

Am new to regex, please help me out here.

Thanks in advance

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1741

Answers (3)

Kash
Kash

Reputation: 9039

Use this regex:

\]\s*([^\[]*?)\s*\[

You may need to escape the backslashes based on the language you are using.
Update: For Java, escape the backslashes

\\]\\s*([^\\[]*?)\\s*\\[

The desired text is captured in the first group.

Upvotes: 1

Sergey Kalinichenko
Sergey Kalinichenko

Reputation: 726809

You can use Matcher for this:

Matcher m = Pattern.compile("\\]([^\\[]*)\\[").matcher("[Hello]world[!!!]");
while (m.find()) {
    System.out.println(m.group(1));
}

This code fragment prints world on ideone.

Note how I changed your regex to use [^\\[]* in place of .*?. This improves efficiency, which may be important for longer inputs.

Upvotes: 3

anubhava
anubhava

Reputation: 785491

If it is Java then you can use this code:

String str = "[DOC TEXT] STARTS WITH [foo] ";
System.out.printf("<%s>%n", 
                    str.replaceAll("^[^\\]]+\\]\\s*([^\\[]+?)\\s*\\[.*$", "$1"));
// output
//<STARTS WITH>

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions