Searching for a substring using Regular Expression

Question

I have a lengthy String similar to repetetion of the one below
String str="<option value='116813070'>Something1</option><option value='ABCDEF' selected>Something 2</option>"I need to search for the Sub string "<option value='ABCDEF' selected>" (need to get the starting index of sub string) and but the value ABCDEF can be anything numberic with varying length.
Is there any way i can do it using regular expressions(I have no other options than regular expression)?
thanks in advance.

Answer 1

If you go through the tutorial then you will find this on the second page:
import java.io.Console;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
public class RegexTestHarness {
    public static void main(String[] args){
        Console console = System.console();
        if (console == null) {
            System.err.println("No console.");
            System.exit(1);
        while (true) {
            Pattern pattern =
            Pattern.compile(console.readLine("%nEnter your regex: "));
            Matcher matcher =
            pattern.matcher(console.readLine("Enter input string to search: "));
            boolean found = false;
            while (matcher.find()) {
                console.format("I found the text \"%s\" starting at " +
                   "index %d and ending at index %d.%n",
                    matcher.group(), matcher.start(), matcher.end());
                found = true;
            if(!found){
                console.format("No match found.%n");
}It's does everything you need and a bit more. Adapt it to your needs then write a regular expression. Then if you have problems by all means come back and post them up here, but first at least attempt to solve it yourself.