匹配非多行正则表达式

Question

I have the following file contents and I'm trying to match a reg explained below:

-- file.txt (doesn't match single/in-line text) -- 
test On blah more blah wrote:
blah blah blah
blah blah
blah
---------------

If I read the file contents from above to a String and try to match the "On...wrote:" part I cannot get a match:

    // String text = <file contents from above>
    Pattern PATTERN = Pattern.compile("^(On\\s(.+)wrote:)$");
    Matcher m = PATTERN.matcher(text);
    if (m.find()) {
       System.out.println("Never gets HERE???");
       // TODO: Strip out all characters after the match and any \s or \n before
    }

Essentially i want to the following output:

-- file2.txt -- 
test    
---------------

Answer 1

Maybe this helps you get the result you want:

        String text = "test On blah more blah wrote:\n" 
                + "blah blah blah\nblah blah\nblah\n";
        StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
        PrintWriter pw = new PrintWriter(sw);
        Pattern PATTERN = Pattern.compile("^(.*?)\\s*On\\s(.+)wrote:$", 
                Pattern.MULTILINE);
        Matcher m = PATTERN.matcher(text);
        if (m.find()) {
            pw.println(m.group(1));
        }
        pw.close();
        System.out.println(sw);

Pattern.MULTILINE javadoc: In multiline mode the expressions ^ and $ match just after or just before, respectively, a line terminator ... I also added the (.*?) which matches everything before the first "On".

Answer 2

since the pattern you are looking for doesn't start the line, remove the ^ . This matches the beginning of a line, but your the line you are looking for starts with the word "test".

However if you want to capture the "test", then insert (\\\\w+)\\\\s after the ^ to form ^(\\\\w+)\\\\s(On\\\\s(.+)wrote:)$