Regex inverse matching on specific string?

Question

I would like to match the following

• com.my.company.moduleA.MyClassName
• com.my.company.moduleB.MyClassName
• com.my.company.anythingElse.MyClassName

but not the following

• com.my.company.core.MyClassName

My current simple regex pattern is :

Pattern PATTERN_MODULE_NAME = Pattern.compile("com\\.my\\.company\\.(.*?)\\..*")

Matcher matcher = PATTERN_MODULE_NAME.matcher(className);
if (matcher.matches()) {
    // will return the string inside the parentheses (.*?)
    return matcher.group(1);
}

So, basically, how can i match everything else, but not a specific string, which is the string core in my case.

Please share your ideas on how to achieve that in Java ?

Thank you !

Answer 1

You can use the following regex:

^com\\.my\\.company\\.(?!core).+?\\.MyClassName$

Answer 2

Perhaps a regex is not the clearest way to write this.

if (className.startsWith("com.my.company.") 
    && !className.startsWith("com.my.company.core.")) {

}

This is fair clear what it does, and you might find it is faster. ;)