Signals a syntax error in the text representation of a regular expression. An exception of this type may be thrown by the Pattern.compile( ) and Pattern.matches( ) methods, and also by the String matches( ), replaceFirst( ), replaceAll( ) and split( ) methods which call those Pattern methods.

getPattern( ) returns the text that contained the syntax error, and getIndex( ) returns the approximate location of the error within that text, or -1, if the location is not known. geTDescription( ) returns an error message that provides further detail about the error. The inherited getMessage( ) method combines the information provided by these other three methods into a single multiline message.

Figure 16-133. java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException

public class PatternSyntaxException extends IllegalArgumentException {
// Public Constructors
     public PatternSyntaxException(String desc, String regex, int index);  
// Public Instance Methods
     public String getDescription( );  
     public int getIndex( );  
     public String getPattern( );  
// Public Methods Overriding Throwable
     public String getMessage( );  
}