How to capture certain text within a StringBuffer Java [duplicate]

Question

I have a StringBuffer object with the following contents:

<ET>read input: 1.629ms</ET>
<ET>There were 3 errors:
<Error>
    <ErrorId>AllConditionsTrue</ErrorId>
    <MetaData>
        <Entry>
            <Key>Balance Due</Key>
            <Value>1500.99</Value>
        </Entry>
    </MetaData>
</Error>

<Error>
    <ErrorId>Opposite</ErrorId>
    <MetaData>
        <Entry>
            <Key>Node</Key>
        </Entry>
    </MetaData>
</Error>

<Error>
    <ErrorId>minInclusive</ErrorId>
    <MetaData>
        <Entry>
            <Key>Description</Key>
            <Value>Wages Amount</Value>
        </Entry>
    </MetaData>
</Error>

: 0.027ms</ET>
<ET>convert: 319.414ms</ET>
<FORM id="123"/>
<DATA size="11920"/>
<ERROR code="0"/>

How can I capture just the text which is at and within the Error Tags (<Error> some text </Error> ). So my new String or StringBuffer object contains:

<Error>
    <ErrorId>AllConditionsTrue</ErrorId>
    <MetaData>
        <Entry>
            <Key>Balance Due</Key>
            <Value>1500.99</Value>
        </Entry>
    </MetaData>
</Error>

<Error>
    <ErrorId>Opposite</ErrorId>
    <MetaData>
        <Entry>
            <Key>Node</Key>
        </Entry>
    </MetaData>
</Error>

<Error>
    <ErrorId>minInclusive</ErrorId>
    <MetaData>
        <Entry>
            <Key>Description</Key>
            <Value>Wages Amount</Value>
        </Entry>
    </MetaData>
</Error>

How can I accomplish my goal using Java?

Edit

Trying both your guys solutions:

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("<Error>.*?<\\/Error>", Pattern.DOTALL);
Matcher m = p.matcher(buf.toString());

String errorText = "";

while (m.find()) {
    errorText = m.group(1);
}

I seem to only get 3 error tag element not all 3.

Example:

<Error>
    <ErrorId>minInclusive</ErrorId>
    <MetaData>
        <Entry>
            <Key>Description</Key>
            <Value>Wages Amount</Value>
        </Entry>
    </MetaData>
</Error>

Please don't use StringBuffer as it was replaced with StringBuilder more than ten years ago. — Peter Lawrey
– Peter Lawrey, Commented Mar 15, 2016 at 7:59

Tim007 · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-15 07:30:12Z

1

Regex:

<Error>.*?<\/Error>

Demo

answered Mar 15, 2016 at 7:30

Tim007

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3 Comments

arabian_albert Over a year ago

Thanks but this regex only seems to grab one Error tag element, see my edit to the original post

Tim007 Over a year ago

@arabian_albert check this stackoverflow.com/questions/16517689/…

arabian_albert Over a year ago

Thanks @Tim007 I definitely need to readup on regex

Parth Joshi · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-15 08:08:53Z

1

SaxParse would be a better solution than string parser.

It will be portable for your future references as well.

Refer this sax documentation :

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/javax/xml/parsers/SAXParser.html

answered Mar 15, 2016 at 8:08

Parth Joshi

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Comments

Nikolas · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-15 07:50:11Z

0

Note that your string contains new lines, so you have to use \n. Try this out:

<Error>((?:.*?\n?)+.*?)<\/Error>

Check the Regex101

edited Mar 15, 2016 at 7:50

answered Mar 15, 2016 at 7:38

Nikolas

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9 Comments

arabian_albert Over a year ago

Trying your solution now

arabian_albert Over a year ago

Thanks, your solution works for this particular problem. Now will this work for any number of Error tags?

Nikolas Over a year ago

Updated. Try it out :)

Nikolas Over a year ago

You have forgotten to double \\ at new line character \\n. You have only single one \n.

Tim007 Over a year ago

@arabian_albert while (m.find()) { System.out.println(m.group(1)); } It may print all 3. errorText = m.group(1); you will only get the last one, other is overwrite because in loop, check this stackoverflow.com/questions/6417435/…

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