AND in a regexp?

Question

Hi
How I simulate an AND in a regexp.
e.g.
I have the text:
Once apone the time, there was a wonderful
forum, known as the watercooler.
But then the evil Sun Monster killed it.
I want the regexp of
monster AND watercooler
The best I can work out is
((.*\Qmonster\E.*)|(.*watercooler.*))|((.*watercooler.*)|(.*\Qmonster\E.*))
which sucks.
Please help.
Thanks mlk

Answer 1

All righty then..hows about this?
This:
(\A*(x)*)&&(\A*(y)*)
Should match a string containing x and y in any order (I think). The \A modifier starts the search at the beginning of the input. (One problem I can already see is that x might be contained within y and you don't want to count that as two matches).
You can generate a regex using a Vector of entries like this:/**
* Generates a regular expression that matches a String containing
* each String in the given Vector.
* @param vec Vector of Strings to match
* @return regex String or null on failure
private String getRegex(Vector vec){
  if((vec == null) || (vec.size() < 1)) return null;
  String expression = "(\\A*(" + (String)vec.firstElement()+ ")*)";
  for(int i=1; i<vec.size(); i++){ //generate regex for entire group
    expression += "&&(\\A*(" + (String)vec.elementAt(i)+ ")*)";
  return expression;
}It's a start at least.