Regex pattern

[ravian]

I am using Regex API to filter some text. I want to find the following pattern:
*-*.html
A dash has to appear in the file name.

String patternStr = "[A-Za-z0-9]*.html";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(patternStr);	
String str1;
        while ((str1 = in.readLine()) != null) {
			Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(str1);

			while(matcher.find())
			{
				int start = matcher.start();
				int end = matcher.end();
				System.out.println(str1.subSequence(start, end));
			}

I don't know how to include dash (-) in the pattern string.

[staykovmarin]

Escape it with a double backslash (since you cant have a single backslash):

String patternStr = "*\\-*.html";

[ravian]

Thanks but what does * means here. Does it mean all the possible characters? I came up with the following. Does this makes sense?

String patternStr = "[A-Za-z0-9]*\\-[A-Za-z0-9]*.html";

[staykovmarin]

Sorry i missed your reply :\
This should work just fine:

		Pattern p = Pattern.compile("^(\\w+[-]\\w+).html");

What that says is:
^ means the beggning of the line. it gets rid of problems like asd$#!%sd-tasd.html
\\w A word character: [a-zA-Z_0-9]
+ one or more character
() mean to take the entire input

Sorry about my previous reply, i wasnt quite awake :p.

small note: you dont need the \\ for -. You can have them, it wont hurt anything, but they are not required since - is not a special character.

[ravian]

Thanks for the details.
I appreciate this.