[java] Create array of regex matches

In Java, I am trying to return all regex matches to an array but it seems that you can only check whether the pattern matches something or not (boolean).

How can I use a regex match to form an array of all string matching a regex expression in a given string?

        Set<String> keyList = new HashSet();
        Pattern regex = Pattern.compile("#\\{(.*?)\\}");
        Matcher matcher = regex.matcher("Content goes here");
        while(matcher.find()) {
            keyList.add(matcher.group(1)); 
        }
        return keyList;

From the Official Regex Java Trails:

        Pattern pattern = 
        Pattern.compile(console.readLine("%nEnter your regex: "));

        Matcher matcher = 
        pattern.matcher(console.readLine("Enter input string to search: "));

        boolean found = false;
        while (matcher.find()) {
            console.format("I found the text \"%s\" starting at " +
               "index %d and ending at index %d.%n",
                matcher.group(), matcher.start(), matcher.end());
            found = true;
        }

Use find and insert the resulting group at your array / List / whatever.

Here's a simple example:

Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regexPattern);
List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
Matcher m = pattern.matcher(input);
while (m.find()) {
    list.add(m.group());
}

(if you have more capturing groups, you can refer to them by their index as an argument of the group method. If you need an array, then use list.toArray())

In Java 9, you can now use Matcher#results() to get a Stream<MatchResult> which you can use to get a list/array of matches.

import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import java.util.regex.MatchResult;

String[] matches = Pattern.compile("your regex here")
                          .matcher("string to search from here")
                          .results()
                          .map(MatchResult::group)
                          .toArray(String[]::new);
                    // or .collect(Collectors.toList())

Java makes regex too complicated and it does not follow the perl-style. Take a look at MentaRegex to see how you can accomplish that in a single line of Java code:

String[] matches = match("aa11bb22", "/(\\d+)/g" ); // => ["11", "22"]