Regex matching only second group

Question

Is there any way that just match the string of second group by just using regex?

The tool I'm using is Rundeck's Global Log Filters (Hightlight Output)

Tool description:

Regular Expression to test. Use groups to selectively highlight. More Use a non-grouped pattern to highlight entire match:

regex: test message: this is a test result: this is a test Use regex groups to only highlight grouped sections:

regex: this (is) a (test) result: this is a test See the Java Pattern documentation.

Example:

3)  Manager port: 2614
4)  Tcp Port: 2615
3)  Manager port: 2714
4)  Tcp Port: 2715

Above is the strings, I want to get the match of "3) Manager port: 2714" only. Here is what I come up (?:Manager port:.*){1}

But it still matching both 3) Manager port: 2614 and 3) Manager port: 2714

Thanks

@WiktorStribiżew Thank you so much. That's exactly what I need. — Jervis Lin
If you want only the second line that starts with "3) Manager port: " you shouldn't use regex. a simple String.startsWith() would do the trick. — Nir Alfasi
@JervisLin Are you sure it works in your target environment? Please check and let know. It is a PCRE/Onigmo/Boost/PyPi regex pattern only. — Wiktor Stribiżew
@WiktorStribiżew Thanks for bringing that up. I just tested it and it didn't work on my environment. Mine is using Java pattern — Jervis Lin

Wiktor Stribiżew Wiktor Stribiżew · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-23T20:29:03

The (?:Manager port:.*){1} is equal to Manager port:.* and just matches any Manager: substring and the rest of the line.

With a java.util.regex regex library, you may use

[\s\S]*(Manager port:.*)

See the regex demo

Details

[\s\S]* - any 0+ chars as many as possible (note that [\s\S] is a "hack", you may safely use (?s:.*) to do the same thing as (?s:.*) represents a modifier group with a DOTALL modifier turned on and thus . matches any char including line break chars)
( - Capturing group start
Manager port: - a literal substring
.* - 0+ chars other than line break chars, as many as possible.
) - capturing group end.

Regex matching only second group

1 Answers