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Java: regular expression: how do I search in multiple tabbed lines?

Hello Experts,

My question embedded in code below:

		String dnis = "0027";
		//I want my regular expression to also match the tabbed line containing
		//the DNIS matching the string above. How do I do this?
		Pattern p = Pattern.compile("^*?(\\@\\d+:\\d+:\\d+)(.*SipReg)");
		//ANI and DNIS are tabbed in logs
		String file = "@13:06:10 SipReg to switch"  + "\n"
				+ "	ANI	'2145558877' " + "\n"
				+ "	DNIS	'0027' " + "\n"
				+ "@13:07:11 SipReg to switch " + "\n"
				+ "	ANI	'9726668877'" + "\n"
				+ "	DNIS	'1127' " + "\n";

		Matcher matcher = p.matcher(file);
		while (matcher.find() == true) 	
			System.out.println(matcher.group());

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In advance, thank you for your help...

Terry Woods

Can you please clarify what the desired output is? I'm not clear whether you want:

	DNIS	'0027'

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or something else

epifanio67

ASKER

Thank you expert,

sure, my apologies for being vague....

I want my regular expression to:
search for time at the beginning of the line - ^*?(\\@\\d+:\\d+:\\d+)
and
search for SipReg - (.*SipReg)
and
search, tabbed lines, for dnis = 0027

but not sure how to do the last part...

thanks for your help...

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Terry Woods

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Terry Woods

The (?m) modifier allows the ^ character to match the start of any line. Without it, it will only match the start of the entire string.

You had ^* which is invalid syntax in a regex. You may have meant to use ^.* ? It's safer to restrict it a bit more than that to prevent unexpected behaviour. I've used [ \\t]* to allow a match of spaces and tabs prior to the @ character, if there are any.

Intead of using .* later in the pattern, I've used [^@]* which:
1. Allows newline characters to be matched too (important, since your data seems to span multiple lines)
2. Won't be too greedy and thus won't start matching data in the following record

epifanio67

ASKER

that worked...
thank you so much for your help....

do you mind explaining the regular expression?

Terry Woods

Let me know if that isn't enough explanation...

epifanio67

ASKER

thank you TerryAtOpus.. I saw your explanation after I rewarded the points....

your explanation is great!

truly appreciated....