It works fine if you avoid calling matcher.replaceAll. When you call replaceAll it forgets any previous matches.
String time = "14:35:59.99";
String timeRegex = "([01][0-9]|2[0-3]):([0-5][0-9]):([0-5][0-9])(?:\\.([0-9]{1,3}))?";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(timeRegex);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(time);
if (matcher.matches()) {
String hours = matcher.group(1);
String minutes = matcher.group(2);
String seconds = matcher.group(3);
String miliSeconds = matcher.group(4);
System.out.println(hours + ", " + minutes + ", " + seconds + ", " + miliSeconds);
}
Notice that I’ve also made a couple of improvements to your regular expression:
- I’ve used non-capturing groups
(?: ... )for the groups that you aren’t interested in capturing. - I’ve changed
.which matches any character to\\.which matches only a dot.
See it working online: ideone