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

An instance of the {@link java.util.regex.Pattern} class represents a regular expression that is specified in string form in a syntax similiar to that used by Perl.

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.

Related Documentation

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

@since 1.4 @version 1.5, 03/12/19 @author Mike McCloskey @author Mark Reinhold