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Classes for matching character sequences against patterns specified by regular expressions.

An instance of the Pattern class represents a regular expression that is specified in string form in a syntax similar to that used by Perl.

Instances of the Matcher class are used to match character sequences against a given pattern. Input is provided to matchers via the CharSequence interface in order to support matching against characters from a wide variety of input sources.

Unless otherwise noted, passing a null argument to a method in any class or interface in this package will cause a NullPointerException to be thrown.

Related Documentation

An excellent tutorial and overview of regular expressions is Mastering Regular Expressions, Jeffrey E. F. Friedl, O'Reilly and Associates, 1997.

Author:Mike McCloskey, Mark Reinhold
Since:1.4
/** * Classes for matching character sequences against patterns specified * by regular expressions. * * <p> An instance of the {@link java.util.regex.Pattern} class * represents a regular expression that is specified in string form in * a syntax similar to that used by Perl. * * <p> Instances of the {@link java.util.regex.Matcher} class are used * to match character sequences against a given pattern. Input is * provided to matchers via the {@link java.lang.CharSequence} * interface in order to support matching against characters from a * wide variety of input sources. </p> * * <p> Unless otherwise noted, passing a <code>null</code> argument to a * method in any class or interface in this package will cause a * {@link java.lang.NullPointerException NullPointerException} to be * thrown. * * <h2>Related Documentation</h2> * * <p> An excellent tutorial and overview of regular expressions is <a * href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/"><i>Mastering Regular * Expressions</i>, Jeffrey E. F. Friedl, O'Reilly and Associates, * 1997.</a> </p> * * @since 1.4 * @author Mike McCloskey * @author Mark Reinhold */
package java.util.regex;