Java – how do I find a value between two strings?

How do I "find" and "get" the value between two strings?

Namely: < a > 3 < / a >

I'm reading a file to find the location of < a >, start there, and then it will stop reading when < / a > is found. The value I want to return is "3"

Using JRE 6

Solution

Your two main options are:

1) Preferred but potentially complex: use an XML / HTML parser and get the text in the first "a" element For example, use jsup (thanks @ alpha123):

Jsoup.parse("<a>3</a>").select("a").first().text(); // => "3"

2) Easier but not very reliable: use regular expressions to extract characters between < a > And < / a > strings For example:

String s = "<a>3</a>";
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("<a>(.*?)</a>")
Matcher m = p.matcher(s);
if (m.find()) {
  System.out.println(m.group(1)); // => "3"
}