Find the last match with Java regex matcher

Question

I\'m trying to get the last result of a match without having to cycle through .find()

Here\'s my code:

String in = \"num 123 num 1 num 698 num 19238          


        

Answer 1

This seems like a more equally plausible approach.

    public class LastMatchTest {
        public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
            String target = "num 123 num 1 num 698 num 19238 num 2134";
            Pattern regex = Pattern.compile("(?:.*?num.*?(\\d+))+");
            Matcher regexMatcher = regex.matcher(target);

            if (regexMatcher.find()) {
                System.out.println(regexMatcher.group(1));
            }
        }
    }

The .*? is a reluctant match so it won't gobble up everything. The ?: forces a non-capturing group so the inner group is group 1. Matching multiples in a greedy fashion causes it to match across the entire string until all matches are exhausted leaving group 1 with the value of your last match.