How can I perform a partial match with java.util.regex.*?

You should have looked more closely at the Matcher API; the hitEnd() method works exactly as you described:

import java.util.regex.*;

public class Test
{
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
  {
    String[] ss = { "aabb", "aa", "cc", "aac" };
    Pattern p = Pattern.compile("aabb");
    Matcher m = p.matcher("");

    for (String s : ss) {
      m.reset(s);
      if (m.matches()) {
        System.out.printf("%-4s : match%n", s);
      }
      else if (m.hitEnd()) {
        System.out.printf("%-4s : partial match%n", s);
      }
      else {
        System.out.printf("%-4s : no match%n", s);
      }
    }
  }
}

output:

aabb : match
aa   : partial match
cc   : no match
aac  : no match

As far as I know, Java is the only language that exposes this functionality. There's also the requireEnd() method, which tells you if more input could turn a match into a non-match, but I don't think it's relevant in your case.

Both methods were added to support the Scanner class, so it can apply regexes to a stream without requiring the whole stream to be read into memory.

Pattern p = Pattern.compile(expr);
Matcher m = p.matcher(string);
m.find();

So you want to know not whether a String s matches the regex, but whether there might be a longer String starting with s that would match? Sorry, Regexes can't help you there because you get no access to the internal state of the matcher; you only get the boolean result and any groups you have defined, so you never know why a match failed.

If you're willing to hack the JDK libraries, you can extend (or probably fork) java.util.regex and give out more information about the matching process. If the match failed because the input was 'used up' the answer would be true; if it failed because of character discrimination or other checks it would be false. That seems like a lot of work though, because your problem is completely the opposite of what regexes are supposed to do.

Another option: maybe you can simply redefine the task so that you can treat the input as the regexp and match aabb against *aa.**? You have to be careful about regex metacharacters, though.