Regular Expression Character Sets with Pattern and Matcher

Question

Hi,
I am a little bit confused about a regular expressions I am writing, it works in other languages but not in Java.
The regular expressions is to match LaTeX commands from a file, and is as follows:
\\begin{command}([.|\n\r\s]*)\\end{command}
This does not work in Java but does in PHP, C, etc...
The part that is strange is the . character. If placed as .* it works but if placed as [.]* it doesnt. Does this mean that . cannot be placed in a character range in Java?
Any help very much appreciated.
Kind Regards
Paul Bain

Answer 1

In PHP it seems that the "." still works as a all character operator inside character classes.
The regular expression posted did not work, but it does if I do:
\\begin{command}((.|[\n\r\s])*)?\\end{command}
Basically what I'm trying to match is a block of LaTeX, so the \\begin{command} and \\end{command} in LaTeX, not regex, although the \\ is a single one in LaTeX. I basically want to match any block which starts with one of those and ends in the end command. so really the regular expression that counts is the bit in the middle, ((.|[\n\r\s])*)?
Am I right it saying that the "?" will prevent the engine matching the first and last \\bein and \\end in the following example:
\\begin{command}
some stuff
\\end{command}
\\begin{command}
some stuff
\\end{command}