Regex not operator

Question

Is there an NOT operator in Regexes? Like in that string : \"(2001) (asdf) (dasd1123_asd 21.01.2011 zqge)(dzqge) name (20019)\"

I want to delete all

Answer 1

You could capture the (2001) part and replace the rest with nothing.

public static string extractYearString(string input) {
    return input.replaceAll(".*\(([0-9]{4})\).*", "$1");
}

var subject = "(2001) (asdf) (dasd1123_asd 21.01.2011 zqge)(dzqge) name (20019)";
var result = extractYearString(subject);
System.out.println(result); // <-- "2001"

.*\(([0-9]{4})\).* means

• .* match anything
• \( match a ( character
• ( begin capture
• [0-9]{4} any single digit four times
• ) end capture
• \) match a ) character
• .* anything (rest of string)