Reg expression - how to set patterns

Question

all,
i'm struggling to get the pattern thing to work in java - its probably beacuse i dont understand the syntax properly and at moment cant find any proper resourse to point me in the right direction. so although this is probably very easy but all i need to do is split string (1967-1969) into two - ie i want
var1=1967;
and var2=1969;i.e in the string want to find the pattern of "-"
and if found split else its only a single year and just take it as it is
i'm trying below code but obviously have the syntax wrong
please can some one tell me how to set the pattern and ideally a resource where i can get a quick ref at the diffrent meaning of the syntax
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("-(.*?)-");
                  Matcher m = p.matcher(year);
                 boolean b = m.find();
                        if (b == true)
                      String[] result = p.split(year);
                           if (log.isDebugEnabled())
                               log.debug("a year range was found the values are "+m.group(1));
                               log.debug("a year range was found the values are lower limit: "+result[0]);
                               log.debug("a year range was found the values are upper limit: "+result[1]);
                               }

Answer 1

String[] result = year.split("-");
or
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("([^-])+-(.*)");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(year);
if (matcher.matches())
String var1 = matcher.group(1);
String var2 = matcher.group(2);
}