Java regex pattern with optional string

Question

Java regex pattern with optional string

I have lines like these:

something something [[abcd]] blah blah
something something [[xyz|abcd]] blah blah

In both cases, I want:

something something abcd blah blah

How to do this using only 1 regex pattern in Java? I can do the first case with this:

Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("\\[\\[(.+?)\\]\\]");
Matcher m = patternLinkRemoval.matcher(text);
return m.replaceAll("$1");

+5

java regex

pckben Jun 19 '12 at 13:08

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2 answers

Found it myself! \\[\\[(?:.+?\\|)?(.+?)\\]\\]

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pckben Jun 19 '12 at 13:15

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aioobe · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-19T13:11:59+0000

Add the following:

All but |zero or more:[^|]*
... and then |:|
... additionally: ?
Group it using (?: ... )if you don't want to record it.

Here is a complete example:

String text1 = "something something [[abcd]] blah blah";
String text2 = "something something [[xyz|abcd]] blah blah";

Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("\\[\\[(?:[^|]*\\|)?(.+?)\\]\\]");

System.out.println(pattern.matcher(text1).replaceAll("$1"));
System.out.println(pattern.matcher(text2).replaceAll("$1"));

Conclusion:

something something abcd blah blah
something something abcd blah blah

Java regex pattern with optional string

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