Matcher toMatchResult() 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 toMatchResult() method of this (Matcher) returns the match state of the current matcher.

Example 1

import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
public class ToMatchResultExample {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      String str = "<p>This <b>is</b> an <b>example</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
      System.out.println("State of the matcher: ");
      Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(str);
      while (matcher.find()) {
         System.out.println(matcher.toMatchResult());
         String result = matcher.group(1);
      }
      matcher = matcher.reset("<p>this is another <b>line</b>.</p>");
      matcher.find();
      System.out.println("");
      System.out.println("State of the matcher after resetting it: \n"+matcher.toMatchResult());
   }
}

Output

State of the matcher:
java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,40 lastmatch=<b>is</b>]
java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,40 lastmatch=<b>example</b>]

State of the matcher after resetting it:
java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=<b>(\S+)</b> region=0,35 lastmatch=<b>line</b>]

Example 2

import java.util.Scanner;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
public class ToMatchResultExample {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      String regex = "[#]";
      System.out.println("Enter a string: ");
      Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
      String input = sc.nextLine();
      //Creating a pattern object
      Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
      //Creating a Matcher object
      Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(input);
      System.out.println("Match state: ");
      //Finding the match
      while(matcher.find()) {
         System.out.println(matcher.toMatchResult());
      }
   }
}

Output

Enter a string:
#This #is #a #sample #text
Match state:
java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=[#] region=0,26 lastmatch=#]
java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=[#] region=0,26 lastmatch=#]
java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=[#] region=0,26 lastmatch=#]
java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=[#] region=0,26 lastmatch=#]
java.util.regex.Matcher[pattern=[#] region=0,26 lastmatch=#]