Lesson - 3 : REGEX - Pattern and String class split in Java Programming

public final class Pattern
extends Object
implements Serializable
A compiled representation of a regular expression.
A regular expression, specified as a string, must first be compiled into an instance of this class. The resulting pattern can then be used to create a Matcher object that can match arbitrary character sequences against the regular expression. All of the state involved in performing a match resides in the matcher, so many matchers can share the same pattern.

A typical invocation sequence is thus

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("a*b");
Matcher m = p.matcher("aaaaab");
boolean b = m.matches();
A matches method is defined by this class as a convenience for when a regular expression is used just once. This method compiles an expression and matches an input sequence against it in a single invocation. The statement

boolean b = Pattern.matches("a*b", "aaaaab");
is equivalent to the three statements above, though for repeated matches it is less efficient since it does not allow the compiled pattern to be reused.
Instances of this class are immutable and are safe for use by multiple concurrent threads. Instances of the Matcher class are not safe for such use.

Summary of regular-expression constructs:

Characters
x The character x
\\ The backslash character
\0n The character with octal value 0n (0 ﹤= n ﹤= 7)
\0nn The character with octal value 0nn (0 ﹤= n ﹤= 7)
\0mnn The character with octal value 0mnn (0 ﹤= m ﹤= 3, 0 ﹤= n ﹤= 7)
\xhh The character with hexadecimal value 0xhh
\uhhhh The character with hexadecimal value 0xhhhh
\x{h...h} The character with hexadecimal value 0xh...h (Character.MIN_CODE_POINT ﹤= 0xh...h ﹤= Character.MAX_CODE_POINT)
\t The tab character ('\u0009')
\n The newline (line feed) character ('\u000A')
\r The carriage-return character ('\u000D')
\f The form-feed character ('\u000C')
\a The alert (bell) character ('\u0007')
\e The escape character ('\u001B')
\cx The control character corresponding to x

Character classes
[abc] a, b, or c (simple class)
[^abc] Any character except a, b, or c (negation)
[a-zA-Z] a through z or A through Z, inclusive (range)
[a-d[m-p]] a through d, or m through p: [a-dm-p] (union)
[a-z&&[def]] d, e, or f (intersection)
[a-z&&[^bc]] a through z, except for b and c: [ad-z] (subtraction)
[a-z&&[^m-p]] a through z, and not m through p: [a-lq-z](subtraction)

Predefined character classes
. Any character (may or may not match line terminators)
\d A digit: [0-9]
\D A non-digit: [^0-9]
\s A whitespace character: [ \t\n\x0B\f\r]
\S A non-whitespace character: [^\s]
\w A word character: [a-zA-Z_0-9]
\W A non-word character: [^\w]