Regex - get list comma separated allow spaces before / after the comma

Question

I try to extract an images array/list from a commit message:

String commitMsg = "#build #images = image-a, image-b,image_c, imaged , image-e #setup=my-setup fixing issue with px"

I want to get a list that contains:

["image-a", "image-b", "image_c", "imaged", "image-e"]

NOTES:

A) should allow a single space before/after the comma (,)

B) ensure that #images = exists but exclude it from the group

C) I also searching for other parameters like #build and #setup so I need to ignore them when looking for #images

What I have until now is:

/(?i)#images\s?=\s?<HERE IS THE MISSING LOGIC>/

I use find() method:

def matcher = commitMsg =~ /(?i)#images\s?=\s?([^,]+)/ 

if(matcher.find()){
    println(matcher[0][1])
}

Answer 1

You can use

(?i)(?:\G(?!^)\s?,\s?|#images\s?=\s?)(\w+(?:-\w+)*)

See the regex demo . Details :

• (?i) - case insensitive mode on
• (?:\G(??^)\s,?\s?|#images\s?=\s?) - either the end of the previous regex match and a comma enclosed with single optional whitespaces on both ends, or #images string and a = char enclosed with single optional whitespaces on both ends
• (\w+(?:-\w+)*) - Group 1: one or more word chars followed with zero or more repetitions of - and one or more word chars.

See a Groovy demo :

String commitMsg = "#build #images = image-a, image-b,image_c, imaged , image-e #setup=my-setup fixing issue with px"
def re = /(?i)(?:\G(?!^)\s?,\s?|#images\s?=\s?)(\w+(?:-\w+)*)/
def res = (commitMsg =~ re).collect { it[1] }
print(res)

Output:

[image-a, image-b, image_c, imaged, image-e]

An alternative Groovy code :

String commitMsg = "#build #images = image-a, image-b,image_c, imaged , image-e #setup=my-setup fixing issue with px"
def re = /(?i)(?:\G(?!^)\s?,\s?|#images\s?=\s?)(\w+(?:-\w+)*)/
def matcher = (commitMsg =~ re).collect()
for(m in matcher) {
    println(m[1])
}