Basic question about regular expressions

Question

Hello,
I am a beginner to regular expressions. I want to rewrite the following expression:
public static final String REGULAR_EXP_SOFTWARE_PART_NUMBER = "([0-9]{7}[a-z]{1})(\\-{1})([a-z]{1})";I want THIS match
(\\-{1})to occur EITHER if a hyphen is encountered OR if a space is encountered (instead of just the hyphen).
How do I rewrite this?
Thanks in advance,
Julien.

Answer 1

Hello and thanks for your feedback,
I have created a small class as follows:
package regExpr;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
* @author Martin
public class RegExprTest {
     private static String stringToBeParsed = "3800157w-e26";
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("" +
                    "([0-9]{7})" +
                    "([a-z]{1})" +
                    "(( |-){1})" +
                    "([a-z]{1})" +
                    "([0-9]{2})" +
          Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(stringToBeParsed);
          while(matcher.find()){
               System.out.println(matcher.group(1));
               System.out.println(matcher.group(2));
               System.out.println(matcher.group(3));
               System.out.println(matcher.group(4));
               System.out.println(matcher.group(5));
               System.out.println(matcher.group(6));
}the class is trying tobreak down the following string "3800157w-e26" as follows:
3800157(seven digits)
w(one letter)
-(hyphen)
e(one letter)
26(two digits)
Oddly enough the output of the class is as follows:
3800157
w
e
26
I have to call the group method six times and I get two hyphens!
Can anyone help?
Thanks in advance,
Julien