Thread: Regular expression to find a line beginning with a certain character Using Java

Hello guys,

I have a text file that has the following lines:

the boy is smart
He is from Australia
** Highly important line
That's all

Now, I need a regular java expression that would match a line in this file that begins with the ** characters. That is, when I match the text with the regex, I should get only this line :

** Highly important line

How would I write this regex in java?

You have to use a regular expression? It'd be much simpler (IMO) to just use an if statement that looks for "**" at the beginning of the line.

How do you check that the line begins with "**" in java? Any simple example?

Thanks

Look at the String API first. Read what each of the methods do, thinking about what you're trying to accomplish, and sketch out something you think will do that - just write pseudo-code if that's all you want to attempt. Come back with your rough outline if/when you need more help.

Hi,
I do know there is the contains() method that is very close to what I need but that will not specifically check for the first characters in a line. I don't know of any String API that could do that except to split the line and check the [0] of the String array and see if it matches **" but I wanted to see IF I could just compare the line with some regex that begins with "**"

Okay, try that.

Like I said, I do know how to split each word in the line and check the first index of the String array.I was just looking for a way to compare each line to a particular regex line that starts with "**". Then you said there is a String API method that could do this? So, I wanted to know if truly there is a string method that can just easily check the first word in a line but found nothing.

--- Update ---

Hello GregBrannon,

Could I ask you for a twist to the problem I am still solving. This is a continuation to the thread but I have come to a stage in the problem where I need some kind of help or pointer to where I could get help. I have an array i-6.. Now, these i is a representation of the alphabets A-F. Now, how do I convert this i to a character. I do know to convert from a character to an integer one does something like this: char-'a' to get the integer representation. How does one convert the integer back to a character?

Thanks

Hi Norm,

Thanks alot. I figured out how to do that with the below code :
char c = (char) ('A'+ i);