CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaregex
Tony
Tony

Reputation: 1165

extracting field values from a string

I have a multi-line String, something like this:

Welcome to blah blah blah.  Below is the information you requested:
temperature: 12c
windspeed: 30 knotts
humidity: 29%
I hope you have a nice day

ok this is a simplified version. Anyway I want to get the value of a field (e.g. windspeed). This is one string with new lines (as an aside sometimes strings are just separated by \n and sometimes by \r\n and I am not sure which, but that is an aside).

Anyway, someone wrote this method

private String getField(String pdfContent, String field) {
    String temp;
    String value = null;
    int idx = pdfContent.indexOf(field);
    if (idx != -1) {
        temp = pdfContent.substring(idx);
        String line = temp.split(":")[1];
        value = line.split("\n")[0].trim();
        l.info(field + value);
    }
    return value;
}

Which is fine except say in the instance below, if you want to find value of name:

You requested name, age and telephone number.  Below are the results
name: Jenny
age: 22
telephone: 867-5309

the method will find the first instance of name. I guess I could look for a colon after the field but there could be a colon after that as in

Following is your request for telephone and name:
telephone: 867-5309
name: Jenny

In a normal regexp I would look for "^name:" but I don't think that works in this instance. Is there a way to find the field at the beginning of a line (in one String)? Best to look for the colon too, as you could have

 name: Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner Smith
 name_common: Merrill Lynch

just looking for name would find the Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner Smith first

Oh and yes, this is Java

Upvotes: 1

Views: 564

Answers (2)

Mark Homans
Mark Homans

Reputation: 757

you could use: /^name:\s(.*)$/gm

with ^ you ensure the line starts with the field.

:\s make sure there is a semicolin and a space after the field.

(.*)$ will read the rest of the line and place it into a group.

Upvotes: 0

Manish Sakpal
Manish Sakpal

Reputation: 299

As you have a multi line string i would reckon you to use the Scanner class findinLine() method, this method will read the parts of your string as:

scannerobj.findInLine("temperature:");  O/p: 12c
scannerobj.findInLine("windspeed:");    O/p: 30 knotts
scannerobj.findInLine("humidity:");     O/p: 29%

Upvotes: 2

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