CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaregex
user2175783
user2175783

Reputation: 1441

java regex to match multiple new line characters up to character

I have the following text string, consisting of a block of text followed by two or more new line characters (\n maybe \r) followed by another block of text,etc like this

multiple line text

(two or more new line characters)

multiple line tex

(two or more new line characters)

I would like to break this string into as many substrings as the number of blocks of text using the new lines as the breaking boundary.

I tried

public static int indexOf(Pattern pattern, String s) {
        Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(s);
        return matcher.find() ? matcher.start() : -1;
    }


pStart[i-1] = start + indexOf(Pattern.compile("[\\n\\n]+"), text.substring(start));

but it doesnt work.

Is there a better idea to handle it?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2081

Answers (2)

user3399857
user3399857

Reputation: 66

Any easy way is to use the String Split Function with a Regex:

String sampleText = new String("first\nsecond\n\r");
String [] blocks = sampleText.split("\n{1,}[\r]?");

The above assumes '1 or more \n' and optionally '1 \r'.
You can change the regex to '\n{2,}[\r]?' for two or more '\n' depending on what you want.

Oracle Java 6 String Split Docs

Cheers!

Upvotes: 1

anubhava
anubhava

Reputation: 786091

You need to understand that [\\n\\n] means only one new line character \n since it is inside character class. Inside character class only one of the listed characters are matched.

You can use:

\\n{2}

instead to match new newline characters.

Upvotes: 3

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