Regex match words Java

This regular expression can be used to validate that a given string contains only characters in it or extract two words from a given string.

Simple word match

The regular expression to match only words looks like this (including compound words):

Pattern.compile("^\\b(?:\\w|-)+\\b$")

Test it!

/^\b(?:\w|-)+\b$/

True

False

Enter a text in the input above to see the result

Example code in Java:

import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import java.util.regex.MatchResult;
import java.util.Arrays;

public class Main {

    public static void main(String []args) {
        // Validate word
        boolean isMatch = Pattern.compile("^\\b(?:\\w|-)+\\b$")
               .matcher("word")
               .find(); 
        System.out.println(isMatch); // prints true
        
        // Extract words from a string
        String[] matches = Pattern.compile("\\b(?:\\w|-)+\\b")
                          .matcher("Hello, world!")
                          .results()
                          .map(MatchResult::group)
                          .toArray(String[]::new);
        System.out.println(Arrays.toString(matches)); // prints [Hello,world]
    }
}

‍

Test it!

True

False

Enter a text in the input above to see the result

Test it!

True

False

Enter a text in the input above to see the result

Create an internal tool with UI Bakery

Discover UI Bakery – an intuitive visual internal tools builder.

Try UI Bakery ↗