CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaregexmatch
JSong
JSong

Reputation: 360

string.matches(regex) returns false, although I think it should be true

I am working with Java regular expressions.

Oh, I really miss Perl!! Java regular expressions are so hard.

Anyway, below is my code.

oneLine = "{\"kind\":\"list\",\"items\"";
System.out.println(oneLine.matches("kind"));

I expected "true" to be shown on the screen, but I could only see "false".

What's wrong with the code? And how can I fix it?

Thank you in advance!!

Upvotes: 6

Views: 1993

Answers (3)

Rohit Jain
Rohit Jain

Reputation: 213401

String#matches() takes a regex as parameter, in which anchors are implicit. So, your regex pattern will be matched at the beginning till the end of the string.

Since your string does not start with "kind", so it returns false.

Now, as per your current problem, I think you don't need to use regex here. Simply using String#contains() method will work fine: -

oneLine.contains("kind");

Or, if you want to use matches, then build the regex to match complete string: -

oneLine.matches(".*kind.*");

Upvotes: 8

mellamokb
mellamokb

Reputation: 56779

The .matches method is intended to match the entire string. So you need something like:

.*kind.*

Demo: http://ideone.com/Gb5MQZ

Upvotes: 4

rsp
rsp

Reputation: 23373

Matches tries to match the whole string (implicit ^ and $ anchors), you want to use contains() to check for parts of the string.

Upvotes: 2

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