I'm way out of date with Java, but it seems much more likely that it will have a class available that would been sufficiently equivalent to perls hashes for this purpose (Set, Map or Bag spring to mind), than it will have equivalent features in it's regex engine to perl's (?{...}) (??{...}) or (?()..|...) extensions.

Examine what is said, not who speaks.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"Think for yourself!" - Abigail

In reply to Re: Need Set-like Regex for Perl and Java (golf OK) by BrowserUk
in thread Need Set-like Regex for Perl and Java (golf OK) by QM

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