Useful class for constructing readable and reusable regular expressions.
MetaPatterns can be contructed from a simple regular expression String, from
other MetaPatterns (copy constructor), from a list of MetaPatterns or from an
array of MetaPatterns. In this way, it is easy to build up larger patterns
while transparently binding the capturing groups of each MetaPattern for easy
object oriented access to capturing group matches.
A given MetaPattern can be converted to a Matcher or Pattern. Groups within
the MetaPattern can be used to automatically reference capturing group values
when a match is made with a Matcher object.
A variety of static constants are provided for use in constructing compound
MetaPatterns. Also, a number of simple parsers have been constructed using
MetaPatterns in the parsers subpackage.
author: Jonathan Locke
Creates a matcher with the given regexp compile flags. Once you call this
method with a given regexp compile flag value, the pattern will be
compiled. Calling it again with a different value for flags will not
recompile the pattern.
Parameters: input - The input to match Parameters: flags - One or more of the standard Java regular expression compileflags (see Pattern.compile(Stringint)) The matcher
Gets the regular expression Pattern for this MetaPattern by compiling it
using the given flags.
Parameters: flags - One or more of the standard Java regular expression compileflags (see Pattern.compile(Stringint)) Equivalent Java regular expression Pattern compiled with thegiven flags