Thread: How split a text looking for values with regular expression

Are each of these lines really on a separate line, or do they come as one big String without line breaks?

Do you not care about anything after the equals sign? Will the equals sign always be there?

If so, split on the = to get at the DE 22, SF 7 part. Then either split on the comma or do the parsing yourself.

For future reference, saying that something didn't work doesn't give us a lot to work from. Try telling us what your code did instead, or provide an MCVE so we can see it for ourselves.

I'm not a regex expert, but this seems to work:

import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
 
public class Test {
	public static void main(String... args){
 
		String data = "DE 2, SF 1 = 00 SOME TEXT THAT DOESN'T INTEREST ME DE 22, SF 1 = 0 SOME TEXT THAT DOESN'T INTEREST ME DE 22, SF 4 = 1 SOME TEXT THAT DOESN'T INTEREST ME DE 22, SF 5 = 0 SOME TEXT THAT DOESN'T INTEREST ME DE 22, SF 6 = 11 SOME TEXT THAT DOESN'T INTEREST ME DE 22, SF 7 = 90x SOME TEXT THAT DOESN'T INTEREST ME DE 22, SF 7 = 12ab SOME TEXT THAT DOESN'T INTEREST ME DE 99 = 1234 SOME TEXT THAT DOESN'T INTEREST ME";
 
		Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("DE \\d+(, SF \\d+)* = \\d+");
		Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(data);
 
		while (matcher.find()){
 
			String wholeThing = matcher.group();
 
		    System.out.println(wholeThing);
 
		    String deDigit = wholeThing.substring(3, wholeThing.contains(",") ? wholeThing.indexOf(",") : wholeThing.indexOf("=") - 1);
 
		    System.out.println("DE digit: " + deDigit);
 
		    if(wholeThing.contains(",")){
		    	String seDigit = wholeThing.substring(wholeThing.indexOf(",") + 5, wholeThing.indexOf("=")-1);
		    	System.out.println("SE digit: " + seDigit);
		    }
 
		    String value = wholeThing.substring(wholeThing.indexOf("=") + 1);
		    System.out.println("Value: " + value);
 
		    System.out.println();
 
		}
	}
}

If I understand what you're asking, all you need to do is change the last bit of the regular expression from capturing digits (\\d) to capturing word characters (\\w).

Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("DE \\d+(, SF \\d+)* = \\w+");

All of this is available in the Pattern API: Pattern (Java Platform SE 7 )

You could get away doing this with basic String methods. Use int indexOf(char c) to find the location of the '(' and ')' characters then concatenate two substrings with the bits that come before and after.

It's possible to solve this with regular expressions but this is cleaner.

Do you need to use regular expressions as part of an assignment or learning exercise? If so I'd recommend using an online tool like this to test your regular expression syntax. If not, well there is a saying we use in my workplace; "I had a problem and used regular expression. Now I have two problems."

For this type of problem I like using String methods like .split and .indexOf to convert plain text to usable data.

So if this is the data;

DE 4 (Amount, Transaction) = 440,800 COP
DE 32 (Acquiring Institution ID Code) = 999692
DE 33 (Forwarding Institution ID Code) = 999692
PDS 0146 (Amounts, Transaction Fee) = 3,800 COP
PDS 1012 (Customer ID) = 123456789bb (test value)
PDS 1002 (Tax[Value Added Tax])= 60,800 COP
PDS 1003 (Tax Amount Base)= 380,000 COP
PDS 1013 (Interchange Code)= P
PDS 1015 (Interchange Percentage)= 00100

I would start by splitting it up at the newline '\n'

String[] rows = allThatJunkData.split("\n");

Now each element of the rows array contains a string representing each row. You can iterate over this array like so;

for (String row: rows) {
   // do something with the individual row
}

As I said above you can use the .indexOf and .substring methods to isolate the bits you are interested in for each row.

int startOfParenthesis = row.indexOf('(');  // position of (
int endOfParenthesis = row.indexOf(')');  // position of )
 
String firstColumn = row.substring(0, startOfParenthesis -1);  // everything before the (
String secondColumn = row.subString(endOfParenthesis, row.length);  //everything after the )

This is all junky code I made up on the fly so there are probably bugs but the point is now you will have:

row[0] == "DE 4 (Amount, Transaction) = 440,800 COP"
firstColumn == "DE 4 "
secondColumn == " = 440,800 COP"

I'm not totally sure what you're asking. Can you show us an MCVE showing the new data, as well as the new regular expression you're trying to use? What does it match? What doesn't it match?

There are 4 pattern. The first two I am able to retrieve thanks to KevinWorkman help. The third I am still struggling to retrieve. After I can fix the third I will try the fourth. Is ("DE \\d+ (w+) (, SF \\d+)* = \\w+") the regex for picking up the ids and values in the cell 3?
Notes: bla bla means any text that I want to ignore.

Spreadsheet:

cell 1:
"bla bla can be any text
DE 1 = 00 bla bla
DE 22 = A1B bla bla
bla bla"
cell 2
"bla bla
DE 3, SF 1 = 00 bla bla
DE 0052, SF 3 = 1 bla bla
bla bla"
cell 3
"bla bla
DE 4 (bla bla) = ABC
DE 88 (bla bla) = 1234
bla bla"
cell 4
"bla bla
DE 4 (bla bla), subfield 12 (bla bla) = ABC
DE 88 (bla bla), subfield 55 (bla bla) = 1234
bla bla"

package com.parse;
 
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
 
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Cell;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Row;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Sheet;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Workbook;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.WorkbookFactory;
 
public class Import3 {
 
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		try {
 
			/*
			 There are 4 patterns of identifiers:
			 1 - DE 99 = value
			 2 - DE 99, SF 99 = value
			 3 - DE 99 (some description) = value
			 4 - DE 99 (some description), subfield 99 (some description) = value
			 */
			InputStream inp = new FileInputStream(
					"/home/deme/the_spreadSheetWith4CellsAbove.xlsx");
			Workbook wb;
 
			wb = WorkbookFactory.create(inp);
			Sheet sheet = wb.getSheetAt(0);
//			Row row = sheet.getRow(0); //pattern 1 
//			Row row = sheet.getRow(1); //pattern 2
			Row row = sheet.getRow(2); //pattern 3
//			Row row = sheet.getRow(3); //pattern 4
			Cell cell = row.getCell(0);
			String strCell = cell.getStringCellValue();
 
			String data = strCell; 
 
//			Pattern pattern1_and_2 = Pattern.compile("DE \\d+(, SF \\d+)* = \\w+");
			Pattern pattern3 = Pattern.compile("DE \\d+ (w+) (, SF \\d+)* = \\w+"); // over here lands my real dificulty
//			Pattern pattern4 = Pattern.compile("DE \\d+ (w+) (, subfield \\d+ (w+) )* = \\w+");
			Matcher matcher = pattern3.matcher(data);
 
			while (matcher.find()) {
 
				String wholeThing = matcher.group();
 
				System.out.println(wholeThing);
 
				String deDigit = wholeThing.substring(3, wholeThing
						.contains(",") ? wholeThing.indexOf(",") : wholeThing
						.indexOf("=") - 1);
 
				System.out.println("DE digit: " + deDigit);
 
				if (wholeThing.contains(",")) {
					String seDigit = wholeThing.substring(wholeThing
							.indexOf(",") + 5, wholeThing.indexOf("=") - 1);
					System.out.println("SF digit: " + seDigit);
				}
 
				String value = wholeThing
						.substring(wholeThing.indexOf("=") + 1);
				System.out.println("Value: " + value);
 
				System.out.println();
 
			}
		} catch (Exception e) {
			System.out.println(e.getMessage());
		}
	}
 
}