Regular Expression help please!

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harryajh - 23 Feb 2007 12:29 GMT

I need a regular expression that checks the contents of a string as
follows -

The string must -

begin with the letters "CTN" but can be case insensitive

must be followed by at least one number possibly more

so

CTN1
CTN123
ctN1

will pass the check but

xCTN1
CTNk
cTn8d

won't!

can anyone help?

thanks

harry

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Chris Dollin - 23 Feb 2007 12:29 GMT

> I need a regular expression that checks the contents of a string as
> follows -

If you were to look at the description of a regular expression,
I think you'd be able to construct the answer yourself.

Signature

Chris "electric hedgehog" Dollin
"How am I to understand if you won't teach me?" - Trippa, /Falling/

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harryajh - 23 Feb 2007 12:45 GMT

> > I need a regular expression that checks the contents of a string as
> > follows -
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> Chris "electric hedgehog" Dollin
> "How am I to understand if you won't teach me?" - Trippa, /Falling/

I've tried several expressions but I just can't get the right one -
was hoping someone with a lot (I've only just started using them!) of
RE experience could just rattle one off?

thanks again

harry

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lester psigal - 23 Feb 2007 12:49 GMT

> I need a regular expression that checks the contents of a string as
> follows -
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
>
> harry

have you tried:

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("^(C|c)(T|t)(N|n)\d+.*");
Matcher m = p.matcher("<yourstring>");
boolean b = m.matches();

if no furter characters are following the "CTN5<digits>.." string then
omit the '.*' clause at the end of the regular expression.
else, please look at the documentation of the javax.util.regex.Pattern
class in the j2se api.

lester

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harryajh - 23 Feb 2007 12:53 GMT

> > I need a regular expression that checks the contents of a string as
> > follows -
[quoted text clipped - 37 lines]
>
> lester

thanks for that Lester - made a note of giving RE stuff a good bash on
the weekend!

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Z - 24 Feb 2007 05:31 GMT

> I need a regular expression that checks the contents of a string as
> follows -
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> cTn8d
> won't!

"^[c|C][t|T][n|N]\d+[\\s|$]"

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Z - 24 Feb 2007 05:39 GMT

>> I need a regular expression that checks the contents of a string as
>> follows -
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>
> "^[c|C][t|T][n|N]\d+[\\s|$]"

Oops!

Make that: "^(c|C)(t|T)(n|N)\\d+(\\s|$)" or "^[cC][tT][nN]\\d+[\\s$]"
or maybe even "^[cC][tT][nN]\\d+\\b"

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Lew - 24 Feb 2007 05:55 GMT

harryajh wrote:

>> I need a regular expression that checks the contents of a string as
>> follows -
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>> cTn8d
>> won't!

> "^[c|C][t|T][n|N]\d+[\\s|$]"

Don't you mean "^[Cc][Tt][Nn]\d+$"? (Not written as a Java String literal.)

Java expression: String re = "^[Cc][Tt][Nn]\\d+$";

Is this homework?

Either way, you have to experiment with solutions you find here on Usenet. I
could be sadly mistaken, or Z could, or anyone could. OTOH, I did look up one
regex reference before posting this response.

<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html>

- Lew

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Regular Expression help please!

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