Java methods won't recognize standard regex meta-characters

Question

First of all, let me say that this is my first attempt at using Java regular expressions. However, I'm stumped as to why my code doesn't work
unless I use strictly text characters. Any use of standard regex meta-characters results in failure.
I'm re-writing a routine I've used for years that is written in Perl and works great. The program scans COBOL source code files looking for
instances of the COBOL syntax COPY followed by the name of a COBOL source code file. There will be at least one space between COPY and the
file name, but there may be more.
I've been using this pattern: \\.\*COPY\\s+FILENAME\\.\* Since the program loads every file in a directory and scans them one at a time, I
wanted to use the Pattern method compile to save time and then use the Matcher methods. The Java program compiles without errors but the match fails.
I abandoned the Pattern and Matcher, used the String method contains and reduced the input to just COPY\s+FILENAME but that didn't work either.
Finally I abandoned all regex meta-characters and passed the literal "COPY FILENAME" to the contains method. Success at last!
What gives? It's not like I'm doing anything particularly fancy.
Edited by: user735407 on Apr 13, 2012 9:47 AM
Edited by: user735407 on Apr 13, 2012 9:48 AM

Answer 1

This is the kind of stuff that makes me wonder sometimes whether I should just apply for a job an Mickey D's and give up this programming
s**t.
I copied the patern string from my Perl program, forgetting that I had specified the period (".") that should always follow the FILENAME
in the code as part of the pattern. I thought the backslash was necessary because the period was a meta-character.
I removed the backslashes in front of the periods and went back to the Pattern class compile method and the use of a Matcher to
match the pattern. Now it works!
Way back when I was just a fresh-faced young programmer, a developer with decades of experience was consoling me after I had spent
a whole day tracking down a compiler error and discovered a simple "fat finger" typing error. He told me that 25 years in the future, after
I had written thousands of programs in many languages, I would still be making exactly this type of mistake and that I had better accept
that fact or I would be fated to die an early death.
Thanks a million for saving me hours of futile code-bashing!!!!