Thread: Java string cut help...

Hi all, was hoping to get some help with this.

If I am given a string such as:
REG20140509-0001

I want to cut out the year/month/day, so in this case '20140509'.
I know that the characters in front of the date will always be letters, not numbers, but I don't know how many. Three in the above example, but could be more or less.
I do know that the date will always be followed by a dash and four digits.

Thanks for any help!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Norm

One idea:
find the "-" and backup x characters over the date and use the substring method.

Thanks Norm. I've used the substring method before, but not sure how to get it to work right to left?

Hi!
You can first split the string by '-' character, so you will have "REG20140509" and store into a String variable (let's say date).
After that you can apply a regexp over this string. Use "\\w" as a pattern.
Then you will extract a substring from date variable. (ex: date.substring(matcher.end()+1); ) and you will get "20140509".

Hope this helps.

--- Update ---

Sorry, I made a mistake.
Use "\\d" pattern. And after that date.substring(matcher.start()) will return "20140509"