org.apache.oro.text.regex

Interface PatternCompiler

Known Implementing Classes:
AwkCompiler, GlobCompiler, 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.

Version:
2.0.8

Since:
1.0

See Also:
Pattern, PatternMatcher, MalformedPatternException

Method Summary

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

Method Details

compile

public 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.


compile

public 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.


compile

public 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

public 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.


Copyright B) 2000-2003 Apache Software Foundation. All Rights Reserved.