Interface PatternCompiler

  • All Known Implementing Classes:
    Perl5Compiler

    public interface PatternCompiler
    The PatternCompiler interface defines the operations a regular expression compiler must implement. However, the types of regular expressions recognized by a compiler and the Pattern implementations produced as a result of compilation are not restricted. A PatternCompiler instance is used to compile the string representation (either as a String or char[]) of a regular expression into a Pattern instance. The Pattern can then be used in conjunction with the appropriate PatternMatcher instance to perform pattern searches. A form of use might be:
     PatternCompiler compiler;
     PatternMatcher matcher;
     Pattern pattern;
     String input;
    
     // Initialization of compiler, matcher, and input omitted;
    
     try {
       pattern = compiler.compile("\\d+");
     } catch(MalformedPatternException e) {
       System.out.println("Bad pattern.");
       System.out.println(e.getMessage());
       System.exit(1);
     }
    
    
     if(matcher.matches(input, pattern))
        System.out.println(input + " is a number");
     else
        System.out.println(input + " is not a number");
    
     

    Specific PatternCompiler implementations such as Perl5Compiler may have variations of the compile() methods that take extra options affecting the compilation of a pattern. However, the PatternCompiler method implementations should provide the default behavior of the class.

    Since:
    1.0
    See Also:
    Pattern, PatternMatcher, MalformedPatternException
    • Method Summary

      All Methods Instance Methods Abstract Methods 
      Modifier and Type Method Description
      Pattern compile​(char[] pattern)
      Compiles a regular expression into a data structure that can be used by a PatternMatcher implementation to perform pattern matching.
      Pattern compile​(char[] pattern, int options)
      Compiles a regular expression into a data structure that can be used by a PatternMatcher implementation to perform pattern matching.
      Pattern compile​(java.lang.String pattern)
      Compiles a regular expression into a data structure that can be used by a PatternMatcher implementation to perform pattern matching.
      Pattern compile​(java.lang.String pattern, int options)
      Compiles a regular expression into a data structure that can be used by a PatternMatcher implementation to perform pattern matching.
    • Method Detail

      • compile

        Pattern compile​(java.lang.String pattern)
                 throws MalformedPatternException
        Compiles a regular expression into a data structure that can be used by a PatternMatcher implementation to perform pattern matching.

        Parameters:
        pattern - A regular expression to compile.
        Returns:
        A Pattern instance constituting the compiled regular expression.
        Throws:
        MalformedPatternException - If the compiled expression does not conform to the grammar understood by the PatternCompiler or if some other error in the expression is encountered.
      • compile

        Pattern compile​(java.lang.String pattern,
                        int options)
                 throws MalformedPatternException
        Compiles a regular expression into a data structure that can be used by a PatternMatcher implementation to perform pattern matching. Additional regular expression syntax specific options can be passed as a bitmask of options.

        Parameters:
        pattern - A regular expression to compile.
        options - A set of flags giving the compiler instructions on how to treat the regular expression. The flags are a logical OR of any number of the allowable constants permitted by the PatternCompiler implementation.
        Returns:
        A Pattern instance constituting the compiled regular expression.
        Throws:
        MalformedPatternException - If the compiled expression does not conform to the grammar understood by the PatternCompiler or if some other error in the expression is encountered.
      • compile

        Pattern compile​(char[] pattern)
                 throws MalformedPatternException
        Compiles a regular expression into a data structure that can be used by a PatternMatcher implementation to perform pattern matching.

        Parameters:
        pattern - A regular expression to compile.
        Returns:
        A Pattern instance constituting the compiled regular expression.
        Throws:
        MalformedPatternException - If the compiled expression does not conform to the grammar understood by the PatternCompiler or if some other error in the expression is encountered.
      • compile

        Pattern compile​(char[] pattern,
                        int options)
                 throws MalformedPatternException
        Compiles a regular expression into a data structure that can be used by a PatternMatcher implementation to perform pattern matching. Additional regular expression syntax specific options can be passed as a bitmask of options.

        Parameters:
        pattern - A regular expression to compile.
        options - A set of flags giving the compiler instructions on how to treat the regular expression. The flags are a logical OR of any number of the allowable constants permitted by the PatternCompiler implementation.
        Returns:
        A Pattern instance constituting the compiled regular expression.
        Throws:
        MalformedPatternException - If the compiled expression does not conform to the grammar understood by the PatternCompiler or if some other error in the expression is encountered.