Match abstract interface#

A result from searching within a string.

A Match or an Iterable of Match objects is returned from the Pattern matching methods (Pattern.allMatches and Pattern.matchAsPrefix).

The following example finds all matches of a RegExp in a String and iterates through the returned iterable of Match objects.

final regExp = RegExp(r'(\w+)');
const string = 'Parse my string';
final matches = regExp.allMatches(string);
for (final m in matches) {
  String match = m[0]!;
  print(match);
}

The output of the example is:

Parse
my
string

Some patterns, regular expressions in particular, may record substrings that were part of the matching. These are called groups in the Match object. Some patterns may never have any groups, and their matches always have zero groupCount.

Properties#

end no setter#

The index in the string after the last character of the match.

int get end;

groupCount no setter#

Returns the number of captured groups in the match.

Some patterns may capture parts of the input that was used to compute the full match. This is the number of captured groups, which is also the maximal allowed argument to the group method.

int get groupCount;

hashCode no setter inherited#

The hash code for this object.

A hash code is a single integer which represents the state of the object that affects operator == comparisons.

All objects have hash codes. The default hash code implemented by Object represents only the identity of the object, the same way as the default operator == implementation only considers objects equal if they are identical (see identityHashCode).

If operator == is overridden to use the object state instead, the hash code must also be changed to represent that state, otherwise the object cannot be used in hash based data structures like the default Set and Map implementations.

Hash codes must be the same for objects that are equal to each other according to operator ==. The hash code of an object should only change if the object changes in a way that affects equality. There are no further requirements for the hash codes. They need not be consistent between executions of the same program and there are no distribution guarantees.

Objects that are not equal are allowed to have the same hash code. It is even technically allowed that all instances have the same hash code, but if clashes happen too often, it may reduce the efficiency of hash-based data structures like HashSet or HashMap.

If a subclass overrides hashCode, it should override the operator == operator as well to maintain consistency.

Inherited from Object.

external int get hashCode;

input no setter#

The string on which this match was computed.

String get input;

pattern no setter#

The pattern used to search in input.

Pattern get pattern;

runtimeType no setter inherited#

A representation of the runtime type of the object.

Inherited from Object.

external Type get runtimeType;

start no setter#

The index in the string where the match starts.

int get start;

Methods#

group()#

The string matched by the given group.

If group is 0, returns the entire match of the pattern.

The result may be null if the pattern didn't assign a value to it as part of this match.

final string = '[00:13.37] This is a chat message.';
final regExp = RegExp(r'^\[\s*(\d+):(\d+)\.(\d+)\]\s*(.*)$');
final match = regExp.firstMatch(string)!;
final message = jsonEncode(match[0]!); // '[00:13.37] This is a chat message.'
final hours = jsonEncode(match[1]!); // '00'
final minutes = jsonEncode(match[2]!); // '13'
final seconds = jsonEncode(match[3]!); // '37'
final text = jsonEncode(match[4]!); // 'This is a chat message.'

String? group(int group);

groups()#

A list of the groups with the given indices.

The list contains the strings returned by group for each index in groupIndices.

final string = '[00:13.37] This is a chat message.';
final regExp = RegExp(r'^\[\s*(\d+):(\d+)\.(\d+)\]\s*(.*)$');
final match = regExp.firstMatch(string)!;
final message = jsonEncode(match.groups([1, 2, 3, 4]));
// ['00','13','37','This is a chat message.']

List<String?> groups(List<int> groupIndices);

noSuchMethod() inherited#

Invoked when a nonexistent method or property is accessed.

A dynamic member invocation can attempt to call a member which doesn't exist on the receiving object. Example:

dynamic object = 1;
object.add(42); // Statically allowed, run-time error

This invalid code will invoke the noSuchMethod method of the integer 1 with an Invocation representing the .add(42) call and arguments (which then throws).

Classes can override noSuchMethod to provide custom behavior for such invalid dynamic invocations.

A class with a non-default noSuchMethod invocation can also omit implementations for members of its interface. Example:

class MockList<T> implements List<T> {
  noSuchMethod(Invocation invocation) {
    log(invocation);
    super.noSuchMethod(invocation); // Will throw.
  }
}
void main() {
  MockList().add(42);
}

This code has no compile-time warnings or errors even though the MockList class has no concrete implementation of any of the List interface methods. Calls to List methods are forwarded to noSuchMethod, so this code will log an invocation similar to Invocation.method(#add, [42]) and then throw.

If a value is returned from noSuchMethod, it becomes the result of the original invocation. If the value is not of a type that can be returned by the original invocation, a type error occurs at the invocation.

The default behavior is to throw a NoSuchMethodError.

Inherited from Object.

@pragma("vm:entry-point")
@pragma("wasm:entry-point")
external dynamic noSuchMethod(Invocation invocation);

toString() inherited#

A string representation of this object.

Some classes have a default textual representation, often paired with a static parse function (like int.parse). These classes will provide the textual representation as their string representation.

Other classes have no meaningful textual representation that a program will care about. Such classes will typically override toString to provide useful information when inspecting the object, mainly for debugging or logging.

Inherited from Object.

external String toString();

Operators#

operator ==() inherited#

The equality operator.

The default behavior for all Objects is to return true if and only if this object and other are the same object.

Override this method to specify a different equality relation on a class. The overriding method must still be an equivalence relation. That is, it must be:

• Total: It must return a boolean for all arguments. It should never throw.

• Reflexive: For all objects o, o == o must be true.

• Symmetric: For all objects o1 and o2, o1 == o2 and o2 == o1 must either both be true, or both be false.

• Transitive: For all objects o1, o2, and o3, if o1 == o2 and o2 == o3 are true, then o1 == o3 must be true.

The method should also be consistent over time, so whether two objects are equal should only change if at least one of the objects was modified.

If a subclass overrides the equality operator, it should override the hashCode method as well to maintain consistency.

Inherited from Object.

external bool operator ==(Object other);

operator []()#

The string matched by the given group.

If group is 0, returns the match of the pattern.

Short alias for Match.group.

String? operator [](int group);