CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexscala
Core_Dumped
Core_Dumped

Reputation: 4709

Parse ddMMMyy date string with regex in Scala

I wanted to make a regex such that the following date can be matched and its elements passed to another function:

"21Feb14"

Now the problem is the first two digits. The user can write a date in which the 'day' field is one-digit long OR two-digit long:

"21feb14" and "1jan13"

both are valid inputs. the regex I made looks like this:

val reg = """(\\d)([a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z])(\d\d)""".r

It clearly does not take into consideration that the first digit may or may not exist. How do I handle that?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 165

Answers (2)

Shiplu Mokaddim
Shiplu Mokaddim

Reputation: 57680

? marks handles that. Like this,

(\d?\d)([a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z])(\d\d)

But I suggest you use following regex

(\d?\d)([a-zA-Z]{3})(\d\d)

Or with posix

(\d?\d)([\p{Alpha}]{3})(\d\d)

Upvotes: 4

Yann Moisan
Yann Moisan

Reputation: 8281

This one is far more readable and maintainable

val reg = """(\d{1,2})([a-zA-Z]{3})(\d{2})""".r

Explanations here : http://regex101.com/r/uZ9qI5

Upvotes: 2

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