Is it possible to build a template based on two helper patterns in Java

Question

Pattern p1 = Pattern.compile("................."); Pattern p2 = Pattern.compile("xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"); 

Since p1 and p2 are quite long, it is difficult to write a single template covering all cases in p1 and p2. Is it possible to write another p3 template that is built on p1 and p2, so that I can only run one Matcher:

 Matcher m = p3.matcher(str); 

Answer 1

You can use this to combine patterns:

 Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(".................|xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"); 

to match one:

 Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(s); 

Answer 2

Of course, you can simply combine pattern strings with | . If you have strings representing patterns string1 and string2 , then string1|string2 will match any pattern. In your example, you can use the string ".................|xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" .

Of course, things get more complicated if you use capture groups or repeatedly match patterns with substrings, because then it is not clear what it means to “combine” patterns, but for simple matching / no -math, this works.