Regex possesive quantifier

Question

I answered this question , here is a direct link to my answer.

You will notice that I used the template:

(\\?)?&?(TXT\\{[^}]++})(&)?

In the following code (added another debug related to my problem):

public static void main(final String[] args) throws Exception {
    final String[] loginURLs = {
        "http://ip:port/path?username=abcd&location={LOCATION}&TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}&password={PASS}",
        "http://ip:port/path?username=abcd&location={LOCATION}&password={PASS}&TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}",
        "http://ip:port/path?TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}&username=abcd&location={LOCATION}&password={PASS}",
        "http://ip:port/path?TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}",
        "http://ip:port/path?username=abcd&password={PASS}"};
    final Pattern patt = Pattern.compile("(\\?)?&?(TXT\\{[^}]++})(&)?");
    for (final String loginURL : loginURLs) {
        System.out.printf("%1$-10s %2$s%n", "Processing", loginURL);
        final StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
        final Matcher matcher = patt.matcher(loginURL);
        while (matcher.find()) {
            final String found = matcher.group(2);
            System.out.printf("%1$-10s 1:%2$s,3:%3$s%n", "Groups", matcher.group(1), matcher.group(3));
            System.out.printf("%1$-10s %2$s%n", "Found", found);
            if (matcher.group(1) != null && matcher.group(3) != null) {
                matcher.appendReplacement(sb, "$1");
            } else {
                matcher.appendReplacement(sb, "$3");
            }
        }
        matcher.appendTail(sb);
        System.out.printf("%1$-10s %2$s%n%n", "Processed", sb.toString());
    }
}

Output signal:

Processing http://ip:port/path?username=abcd&location={LOCATION}&TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}&password={PASS}
Groups     1:null,3:&
Found      TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}
Processed  http://ip:port/path?username=abcd&location={LOCATION}&password={PASS}

Processing http://ip:port/path?username=abcd&location={LOCATION}&password={PASS}&TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}
Groups     1:null,3:null
Found      TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}
Processed  http://ip:port/path?username=abcd&location={LOCATION}&password={PASS}

Processing http://ip:port/path?TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}&username=abcd&location={LOCATION}&password={PASS}
Groups     1:?,3:&
Found      TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}
Processed  http://ip:port/path?username=abcd&location={LOCATION}&password={PASS}

Processing http://ip:port/path?TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}
Groups     1:?,3:null
Found      TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}
Processed  http://ip:port/path

Processing http://ip:port/path?username=abcd&password={PASS}
Processed  http://ip:port/path?username=abcd&password={PASS}

Which is perfect.

Now my problem

When I change the first group of matches (\\?)?to use the possessive quantifier, i.e. (\\?)?+, the result for the first element becomes the following:

Processing http://ip:port/path?username=abcd&location={LOCATION}&TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}&password={PASS}
Groups     1:?,3:&
Found      TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}
Processed  http://ip:port/path?username=abcd&location={LOCATION}?password={PASS}

I can’t work in life where the question mark in the first group of matches comes from .

I do not see a way to correctly match the template to the required line and capture the question mark in the first group.

Did I just miss something obvious?

, OS X Mavericks :

java version "1.8.0"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0-b132)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.0-b70, mixed mode)

Answer 1

, , . . . , - , .

, :

"(\\?)?+&?(TXT\\{[^}]++})(&)?"

? username, 1. , & u username. , ?. , .

. 1 ?. :

&TXT{UE-IP,UE-Username,UE-Password}&

, ? , . 1.

, ? , .

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Java regex engine, Perl, undefined. .