Using regular Expressions with Mongodb

Question

I am using Java Spring to work with Mongodb. I need to find documents which the word 'manager' is existed in description field. I tried following two method

Method 1

Query query = new Query();
query.addCriteria(Criteria.where("discription").regex("/\bmanager\b/"));

Method 2

Query query = new Query();
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("/\bmanager\b/");
query.addCriteria(Criteria.where("discription").regex(p));

But none of these were worked. I tried it with mongodb console like this

db.test.find({discription: {$regex: /\bmanager\b/}})

It worked as I expected. What's wrong with my Java code.

Markus W Mahlberg · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-17 09:10:30Z

1

You don't have to add the slashes in the regex expression, as the regex method takes care of it. So

Query query = new Query();
query.addCriteria(Criteria.where("description").regex("\bmanager\b"));

should work.

answered Jul 17, 2014 at 9:10

Markus W Mahlberg

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5 Comments

Markus W Mahlberg Over a year ago

Then you are doing something else wrong. Have a look here: mkyong.com/mongodb/spring-data-mongodb-like-query-example

Markus W Mahlberg Over a year ago

Maybe you should use BasicQuery instead of query. Another way would be to use SpringData's repository feature.

pasanmaduranga Over a year ago

I can get it work if I use regular expression as "manager" without enclosing it with '\b \b'. But that's not the result I expected. I want 'manager' as a whole word. I think the problem here is using '\b \b'

Markus W Mahlberg Over a year ago

You might have to escape the slashes.

pasanmaduranga Over a year ago

If I print the query object it looks like this. Query: { "description" : { "$regex" : "/\bmanager\b/"}}. The regular expression string has enclosed with double quotations here. That's the problem I think.

evanchooly · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-17 08:46:53Z

0

It looks like you can just pass your regex string straight through without using Pattern.compile(). Have you tried that?

answered Jul 17, 2014 at 8:46

evanchooly

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4 Comments

evanchooly Over a year ago

doh. missed that. is it really discription in the db and not description?

pasanmaduranga Over a year ago

:) Just a typing mistake. It should be description.

pasanmaduranga Over a year ago

But the problem is still exist

evanchooly Over a year ago

Yeah, i don't know spring-data so I'm not sure what else to suggest except step through how regex() works and see what the final generated query looks like.

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