Matcher reset() method in Java with Examples

The java.util.regex.Matcher class represents an engine that performs various match operations. There is no constructor for this class, you can create/obtain an object of this class using the matches() method of the class java.util.regex.Pattern.

The reset() method of this (Matcher) class removes all the state information and resets the character sequence to default, and append position to zero.

Example1

import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
public class Reset {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      String str = "<p>This <b>is</b> an <b>example</b>HTML <b>script</b> where <b>every</b> alternative <b>word</b> is <b>bold</b></p>.";
      //Regular expression to match contents of the bold tags
      String regex = "<b>(\S+)</b>";
      //Creating a pattern object
      Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
      //Matching the compiled pattern in the String
      Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(str);
      while (matcher.find()) {
         System.out.println("State of the matcher: "+matcher.toMatchResult());
         String result = matcher.group(1);
      }
      matcher = matcher.reset();
      System.out.println("State of the matcher after resetting it: "+matcher.toMatchResult());
   }
}

Output

State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=<b>is</b>]
State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=<b>example</b>]
State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=<b>script</b>]
State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=<b>every</b>]
State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=<b>>word</b>]
State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=<b>bold</b>]
State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=]
State of the matcher after resetting it: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=]

Another variant of this method accepts a string data and resets the Matcher with it.

Example 2 

import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
public class Reset {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      String str = "<p>This <b>is</b> an <b>example</b> HTML <b>script</b> where <b>every</b> alternative <b>word</b> is <b>bold</b></p>.";
      //Regular expression to match contents of the bold tags
      String regex = "(\S+)";
      //Creating a pattern object
      Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
      //Matching the compiled pattern in the String
      Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(str);
      while (matcher.find()) {
         System.out.println("State of the matcher: "+matcher.toMatchResult());
         String result = matcher.group(1);
      }
      matcher = matcher.reset("<b>this</b> is <b>new</b> string <b>after</b> reset");
      while (matcher.find()) {
         System.out.println("State of the matcher after resetting it: "+matcher.toMatchResult());
      }
   }
}

Output

State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=<b>is</b>]
State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=<b>example</b>]
State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=<b>script</b>]
State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=<b>every</b>]
State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=<b>word</b>]
State of the matcher: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,116 lastmatch=<b>bold</b>]
State of the matcher after resetting it: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,51 lastmatch=<b>this</b>]
State of the matcher after resetting it: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,51 lastmatch=<b>new</b>]
State of the matcher after resetting it: java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,51 lastmatch=<b>after</b>]