Parsing path variables from URL

Question

I have to implement almost similar system to Spring PathVariable. I know how to parse my own url definition:

Definition :

blog-{String}-{Integer}

Code :

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\{.+?\\}");
Matcher m = p.matcher(pathFormat);
while(m.find())
{
    String group = m.group();
    // ...
}

But how can I parse real urls with my format? If real url was like

blog-my-first-blogging-10001

Real url doesn't have brackets, so how can I use regex to match my groups. Type of group is known, but how to match without brackets ?

soulcheck · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-17 09:10:22Z

1

Maybe a bit silly, but why not try:

 String restOfPath = pathFormat.substring(5); //eliminate 'blog-' prefix
 int lastDash = restOfPath.lastIndexOf('-'); //find the last '-'
 String title = restOfPath.substring(0, lastDash);  // take what's before '-'
 String id = restOfPath.substring(lastDash + 1); // take the rest.

??

Unless your paths can get more complicated than blog-{String}-{Integer} there's no need for regex here.

answered Feb 17, 2012 at 9:10

soulcheck

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3 Comments

newbie Over a year ago

Thanx for input, but I need generic solution that can match almost any possible url, just like Spring PathVariable ...

soulcheck Over a year ago

@newbie the problem you have is that the string you're capturing can contain the path separator. AFAIK spring and probably all implementations of URI templates will bork if you try to match word/a/lot/of/words/anotherword against word/{something}/anotherword (ie it won't match). That's your case, only with dashes instead of slashes.

newbie Over a year ago

Oops, that's right, url template must have separator to work, I missed that.

NimChimpsky · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-17 09:15:09Z

1

It is not clear (to me at least) what you are trying to do, here is how I use spring path variables :

@RequestMapping(value = "/{MyBlog}/{myVar}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public ModelAndView getBlog(@PathVariable final String MyBlog, @PathVariable final Integer myVar)    {
  final ModelAndView mav  =  new ModelAndView(MyBlog);
  mav.addObject("myVar", myVar);
  // in actuality do lots of other thigns 
  return mav;
}

And it would accessed using the url http://myApp.com/AnyBlogName/21 where 21 can be any number, and AnyblogName can be string you want.

edited Feb 17, 2012 at 9:15

answered Feb 17, 2012 at 9:04

NimChimpsky

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