Change pattern of an existing pattern object?

[Dillinger4]

Is there anyway that i could reuse an existing pattern object and just change the pattern without having to create a whole new pattern object by compiling it? Plus i am getting an error variable p might not have been initialized

 import java.util.*;
 import java.util.regex.Pattern;
 import java.util.regex.Matcher;  

 public class X{
  public static void main(String[] args){
 
   String flavors = new String("marshmellowipeanutbutter   i   rockyroad");
   Pattern p = p.compile("\\s*i\\s*");
   // want to keep the same pattern object just change the pattern 
   Scanner s = new Scanner(flavors); //.useDelimiter("\\s*i\\s*"); 
   Matcher m = p.matcher(flavors);
   if(m.matches()){ 
    while(s.hasNext(p)){
     System.out.println(s.next()); 
    }
   }
  }
 }

[Dillinger4]

Ok now im not getting a pattern match.

 import java.util.*;
 import java.util.regex.Pattern;
 import java.util.regex.Matcher;  

 public class X{
  public static void main(String[] args){
 
   String flavors = new String("marshmellowipeanutbutter   i   rockyroad");
   Pattern p = null; 
   p = p.compile("\\s*i\\s*");
   Scanner s = new Scanner(flavors); //.useDelimiter("\\s*i\\s*"); 
   Matcher m = p.matcher(flavors);
   if(m.matches()){ 
    while(s.hasNext(p)){
     System.out.println(s.next()); 
    }
   }
  }
 }

[CornedBee]

Pattern p = p.compile("\\s*i\\s*");

You mean Pattern.compile, that's the reason for the uninitialized error.

And no, a compiled pattern is compiled to Java bytecode and can not be modified. Doing so would be far too complex and unreliable. You have to completely recompile it.

[Dillinger4]

posted by CornedBee

You mean Pattern.compile, that's the reason for the uninitialized error.

Der. How dumb of me. Thanks for the help.