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Interface com.oroinc.text.regex.PatternCompiler

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.

Copyright © 1997 Original Resuable Objects, Inc. All rights reserved.

Author:
Daniel F. Savarese
See Also:
Pattern, PatternMatcher, MalformedPatternException

Method Index

o compile(char[])
Compiles a regular expression into a data structure that can be used by a PatternMatcher implementation to perform pattern matching.
o compile(char[], int)
Compiles a regular expression into a data structure that can be used by a PatternMatcher implementation to perform pattern matching.
o compile(String)
Compiles a regular expression into a data structure that can be used by a PatternMatcher implementation to perform pattern matching.
o compile(String, int)
Compiles a regular expression into a data structure that can be used by a PatternMatcher implementation to perform pattern matching.

Methods

o compile 
 public abstract Pattern compile(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.
o compile 
 public abstract Pattern compile(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.
o compile 
 public abstract 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.
o compile 
 public abstract 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. 
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