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javaregexpathstring-matchingregex-greedy

Match Path using Regex in Java

I'm trying to match the pattern path which follows: secret/roles/[can be anything]/dev/[Variable]/[can be additional child paths or just empty]

I tried the following:

String Vairable = "john";
String RegularExpression = "(secret/roles)?(/[a-zA-Z0-9_.-])?(/dev)?(/" + Variable + ")?(/[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]+)+/?";

but it doesn't filter the Variable part and basically captures all the child paths under secret/roles/...

Solution

  • Using matches, you can use either

    String RegularExpression = "secret/roles/[^/]+/dev/"+Pattern.quote(Vairable)+"/.*";

    Or

    String RegularExpression = "secret/roles/[^/]+/dev/"+Pattern.quote(Vairable)+"/[^/]*";

    In the first case, anything can go after Vairable and a backslash, in the latter, only one subpart is allowed, no / chars can appear after that backslash.

    The Pattern.quote() is added to escape any special regex metacharacters that may occur in the Vairable variable.