Regexp not matching extension

Asked Aug 17 '21 at 12:40

Active Aug 17 '21 at 12:40

Viewed 17 times

I want to find all files with certain extension in certain path. Example:

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("/Users/*/*\\.png");
Matcher m = p.matcher("/Users/me/failed.png");
m.find()

this should result in true, however its false, so i tried to be more specific:

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("/Users/*/[a-z]*\\.png");
Matcher m = p.matcher("/Users/me/failed.png");
m.find()

However everything is false, but the regexp should match the given input. Why is this resulting in false? Is there something about regexp i have missed? Thanks for help!

asked Aug 17 '21 at 12:40

Johnyb

`*` doesn’t do what you think it does. Perhaps you are getting glob and regex confused. `*` means zero or more of the thing to the left. Neither regex allows `me/failed`. – Biffen Aug 17 '21 at 12:42
@Biffen so why does /Users/*/* matches the string? – Johnyb Aug 17 '21 at 12:45
Which string, exactly, does `/Users/*/*` match? – Biffen Aug 17 '21 at 12:46
@Biffen it matches "/Users/me/failed.png" – Johnyb Aug 17 '21 at 12:46
@Biffen oh, find() and matches() have different purpose, my bad, it does not matches it. Makes sense it find() something – Johnyb Aug 17 '21 at 12:47
_Within_ the string `/Users/me/failed.png` the regex `/Users/*/*` will match `/Users/`. – Biffen Aug 17 '21 at 12:48

Regexp not matching extension

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