Regex Reminder: Match the End of a String

Devin Olson  April 9 2013 02:35:11 PM

Regular Expression for matching the end of a string (usually in Java)

I am posting this here because I'm tired of having to think this through every time I need it.  Perhaps it will be of some use to somebody else.

^.*substring$

When searching any string using a RegEx Matches Pattern construct, the above pattern breaks down as follows:

• ^  match the beginning of the string


• .  match any single character


• *  match the preceding match character (in this case, any character), zero or more times.  


• substring this is the substring you want to match.  Make sure all control characters are escaped.


• $  match the preceding match instructions against the end of the string.

Also, if you want to perform a CASE-INSENSITIVE match (without using a Java Pattern Object),
you can add the (?i) control flag to the beginning of your regular expression:

(?i)^.*substring$

Hope this helps!
-Devin.

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