Regex for groovy not working - groovy

Question

Please find below my code. I am trying to iterate through files and in a directory and print out all the match to the regex: (&)(.+?\b)
however this doesn't seem to work (it returns an empty string). Where did I go wrong?
import groovy.io.FileType
class FileExample {
static void main(String[] args) {
def list = []
def dir = new File("*path to dir*")
dir.eachFileRecurse (FileType.FILES) { file ->
list << file.name;
def s= "${file.text}";
def w = s.toString();
w.readLines().grep(~/(&)(.+?\b)/)
}
}
}

Answer 1

I figured it out:
import groovy.io.FileType
class FileExample {
static void main(String[] args) {
def list = []
def dir = new File("/path/to/directory/containingfiles")
def p = []
dir.eachFileRecurse (FileType.FILES) {
file -> list << file.name
def s = file.text
def findtp = (s =~ /(&)(.+?\b)/)
findtp.each {
p.push(it[2])
// As I'm only interested in the second matched group
}
}
p.each {
println it
}
}
}
Now, all the matched strings are stored in the array p and can be printed/used elsewhere by p[0] etc.

Answer 2

w.readLines().grep(~/(&)(.+?\b)/) does not do any output, it gives you the matching lines as return value, so if you change it to println w.readLines().grep(~/(&)(.+?\b)/) or w.readLines().grep(~/(&)(.+?\b)/).each { println it }, you will get the matched lines printed on stdout.
Btw.
def s= "${file.text}";
def w = s.toString();
w.readLines()
is just a biiiig waste of time. It is exactly the same as file.text.readLines().
"${file.text}" is a GString that replaces the placeholders on evaluation, but as you have nothing but the file.text placeholder, this is the same as file.text as String or file.text.toString().
But as file.text actually is a String already, it is identical to file.text.
And even if you would need the GString because you have more than the placeholder in it, GString already has a readLines() method, so no need for using .toString() first, even if a GString would be necessary.