Currency values string split by comma

Question

I have a String which contains formatted currency values like 45,890.00 and multiple values seperated by comma like 45,890.00,12,345.00,23,765.34,56,908.5

Answer 1

You could also use a different regular expression to match the pattern that you're searching for (then it doesn't really matter what the separator is):

 String currencyValues = "45,890.00,12,345.00,23,765.34,56,908.50,55.00,345,432.00";
 Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("(\\d{1,3},)?\\d{1,3}\\.\\d{2}");
 Matcher m = pattern.matcher(currencyValues);
 while (m.find()) {
    System.out.println(m.group());
 }

prints

45,890.00
12,345.00
23,765.34
56,908.50
55.00
345,432.00

Explanation of the regex:

• \\d matches a digit
• \\d{1,3} matches 1-3 digits
• (\\d{1,3},)? optionally matches 1-3 digits followed by a comma.
• \\. matches a dot
• \\d{2} matches 2 digits.

However, I would also say that having comma as a separator is probably not the best design and would probably lead to confusion.

EDIT:

As @tobias_k points out: \\d{1,3}(,\\d{3})*\\.\\d{2} would be a better regex, as it would correctly match:

• 1,000,000,000.00

and it won't incorrectly match:

• 1,00.00