How to extract required string in below text using regular expressions in java?

Question

I want to extract string between first and last in the below text.

Scenario 1:

"Select statement"+"\n"+
"first"+"\n"+
"I want to extract this" +"\n"+
"I want to extract this one too"+"\n"+
"last"+"\n"+
"end of the statement"+"\n"+
"first"+"\n"+
"I want to extract this" +"\n"+
"I want to extract this one too"+"\n"+
"last"+"\n"+
"end of the statement"

Scenario 2:

"Select statement"+"\n"+
"first"+"\n"+
"I want to extract this" +"\n"+
"last"+"\n"+
"end of the statement";

What would be the regex pattern in java to do this job? Pattern should be one but it should work in both the scenarios. Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

You may use lookarounds.

Matcher m = Pattern.compile("(?s)(?<=\\bfirst\\n).*?(?=\\n?\\blast\\b)").matcher(s);
if(m.find())
  {
      System.out.println(m.group());
  }