Thread: Regular Expression (Pattern Matching)

Hi all, am trying to interpret the following

Code:

if(!getEmail().matches("^[a-zA-Z][\\w\\.-]*[a-zA-Z0-9]@[a-zA-Z0-9][\\w\\.-]*[a-zA-Z0-9]\\.[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z\\.]*[a-zA-Z]$"))
{
              errors.add("name",new ActionMessage("email.invalid") );
}

and my interpretation is

Code:

^[a-zA-Z] must start with a letter(s)

[\\w\\.-]* can be followed by  a number of characters including/ending with a dot or hyphen

[a-zA-Z0-9]@ must have a letter(s) and should be followed by '@'

[a-zA-Z0-9][\\w\\.-]*[a-zA-Z0-9] same as above (a string which may contain a dot or hyphen

\\. a dot must exist 

[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z\\.]*[a-zA-Z]$" a string which may contain a dot but must end with word characters

Have a question, does these dots [\.] within brackets suggests that i can have dots in my address i.e [email protected] ?

Yes. It's saying that there are any number of strings made of letters, separated by '.'s