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java String.replaceAll char between two numbers

I would like to replace all char '-' that between two numbers, or that between number and '.' by char '&'.For example
String input= "2.1(-7-11.3)-12.1*-2.3-.11"
String output= "2.1(-7&11.3)-12.1*-2.3&.11"
I have something like this, but I try to do it easier.
public void preperString(String input) {
input=input.replaceAll(" ","");
input=input.replaceAll(",",".");
input=input.replaceAll("-","&");
input=input.replaceAll("\\(&","\\(-");
input=input.replaceAll("\\[&","\\[-");
input=input.replaceAll("\\+&","\\+-");
input=input.replaceAll("\\*&","\\*-");
input=input.replaceAll("/&","/-");
input=input.replaceAll("\\^&","\\^-");
input=input.replaceAll("&&","&-");
input=input.replaceFirst("^&","-");
for (String s :input.split("[^.\\-\\d]")) {
if (!s.equals(""))
numbers.add(Double.parseDouble(s));
}

You can make it in one shot using groups of regex to solve your problem, you can use this :
String input = "2.1(-7-11.3)-12.1*-2.3-.11";
input = input.replaceAll("([\\d.])-([\\d.])", "$1&$2");
Output
2.1(-7&11.3)-12.1*-2.3&.11
([\\d.])-([\\d.])
// ^------------replace the hyphen(-) that it between
// ^__________^--------two number(\d)
// ^_^______^_^------or between number(\d) and dot(.)
regex demo

Let me guess. You don't really have a use for & here; you're just trying to replace certain minus signs with & so that they won't interfere with the split that you're trying to use to find all the numbers (so that the split doesn't return "-7-11" as one of the array elements, in your original example). Is that correct?
If my guess is right, then the correct answer is: don't use split. It is the wrong tool for the job. The purpose of split is to split up a string by looking for delimiter patterns (such as a sequence of whitespace or a comma); but where the format of the elements between the delimiters doesn't much matter. In your case, though, you are looking for elements of a particular numeric format (it might start with -, and otherwise will have at least one digit and at most one period; I don't know what your exact requirements are). In this case, instead of split, the right way to do this is to create a regular expression for the pattern you want your numbers to have, and then use m.find in a loop (where m is a Matcher) to get all your numbers.
If you need to treat some - characters differently (e.g. in -7-11, where you want the second - to be an operator and not part of -11), then you can make special checks for that in your loop, and skip over the - signs that you know you want to treat as operators.
It's simpler, readers will understand what you're trying to do, and it's less error-prone because all you have to do is make sure your pattern for expressing numbers accurately reflects what you're looking for.
It's common for newer Java programmers to think regexes and split are magic tools that can solve everything. But often the result ends up being too complex (code uses overly complicated regexes, or relies on trickery like having to replace characters with & temporarily). I cannot look at your original code and convince myself that it works right. It's not worth it.

You can use lookahead and lookbehind to match digit or dot:
input.replaceAll("(?<=[\\d\\.])-(?=[\\d\\.])","&")
Have a look on this fiddle.

Any suggestions to match and extract the pattern?

I want to match something like this
$(string).not(string).not(string)
The not(string) can repeat zero or more times, after $(string).
Note that the string can be whatever things, except nested not(string).
I used the regular expression (\\$\\((.*)\\))((\\.not\\((.*?)\\))*?)(?!(\\.not)), I think the *? is to non-greedily match any number of sequence of not(string), and use the lookahead to stop the match that is not not(string), so that I can extract only the part that I want.
However, when I tested on the input like
$(string).not(string).not(string).append(string)
the group(0) returns the whole string, which I only need $(string).not(string).not(string).
Obviously I still miss something or misuse of anything, any suggestions?

Try this one (escaped for java):
(\\$\\(string\\)(?:(?:\\.not\(.*?\\))+))
It should capture just the part that you are after. You can test it out (unescaped for java though)

If we assume that parenthesis are not nested, you can write something like this:
string p = "\\$\\([^)]*\\)(?:\\.not\\([^)]*\\))*";
Not need to add a lookahead since the non-capturing group has a greedy quantifier (so the group is repeated as possible).
if what you called string in your question may be a quoted string with parenthesis inside like in Pshemo example: $(string).not(".not(foo)").not(string), you can replace each [^)]* with (?:\\s*\"[^\"]*\"\\s*|[^)]*) to ignore characters inside quoted parts.

From here, "group zero denotes the entire pattern". Use group(1).

(\$\([\w ]+\))(\.not\([\w ]+\))*
This will also work, it would give you two groups, One consisting of the word with $ sign, another would give you the set of all ".not" strings.
Please note: You might have to add escape characters for java.

Java regular expression for number starts with code

I am not a Java developer but I am interfacing with a Java system.
Please help me with a regular expression that would detect all numbers starting with with 25678 or 25677.
For example in rails would be:
^(25677|25678)
Sample input is 256776582036 an 256782405036

^(25678|25677)
or
^2567[78]
if you do ^(25678|25677)[0-9]* it Guarantees that the others are all numbers and not other characters.
Should do the trick for you...Would look for either number and then any number after

In Java the regex would be the same, assuming that the number takes up the entire line. You could further simplify it to
^2567[78]
If you need to match a number anywhere in the string, use \b anchor (double the backslash if you are making a string literal in Java code).
\b2567[78]
how about if there is a possibility of a + at the beginning of a number
Add an optional +, like this [+]? or like this \+? (again, double the backslash for inclusion in a string literal).
Note that it is important to know what Java API is used with the regular expression, because some APIs will require the regex to cover the entire string in order to declare it a match.

Try something like:
String number = ...;
if (number.matches("^2567[78].*$")) {
//yes it starts with your number
}
Regex ^2567[78].*$ Means:
Number starts with 2567 followed by either 7 or 8 and then followed by any character.
If you need just numbers after say 25677, then regex should be ^2567[78]\\d*$ which means followed by 0 or n numbers after your matching string in begining.

The regex syntax of Java is pretty close to that of rails, especially for something this simple. The trick is in using the correct API calls. If you need to do more than one search, it's worthwhile to compile the pattern once and reuse it. Something like this should work (mixed Java and pseudocode):
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("^2567[78]");
for each string s:
if (p.matcher(s).find()) {
// string starts with 25677 or 25678
} else {
// string starts with something else
}
}
If it's a one-shot deal, then you can simplify all this by changing the pattern to cover the entire string:
if (someString.matches("2567[78].*")) {
// string starts with 25677 or 25678
}
The matches() method tests whether the entire string matches the pattern; hence the leading ^ anchor is unnecessary but the trailing .* is needed.
If you need to account for an optional leading + (as you indicated in a comment to another answer), just include +? at the start of the pattern (or after the ^ if that's used).

java regular expression exclusion list pattern

I understand that when I do [^abc] this will match any thing other than a,b, and c. What if I want it to match anything other than a "..". So far the exclusion list I have is:
[^<>:\"/\|?*]+
I want to add a ".." as well into this exclusion list. So in english it would be "if it's anything other than the left brackets, right brackets, double quote, asterix, double dot (".."), the rest of the characters here, then it should match".
The test case I need to pass is:
foo/../baz needs to be /baz
bar/../../foo needs to be /../foo

Not a java expert, but it looks like you have a negated character class defined there. A character class is basically a list of characters in that class, or in your case, not in that class, and you can apply this to a string.
It seems that you're most likely after a match for the string "..". If so, I think you just need a specific regex for it. Maybe this would do the trick:
\.\.
A dot "." by itself of course matches any single character, so the backslash escapes are needed to match an actual string of two dots instead of any two characters.

Ok I have been playing around for a bit and this will prevent a match if the .. string is present:
^(?:(?!(\.\.)).)*$
I'm going to carry on but you might consider simply running two separate regex and making sure neither match.

If you are not particularly interested in delimiter itself you could use this
String source = "aa^bb<cc>dd:ee\"ff/gg\\hh|ii?jj*kk:ll/mm..mn";
String regex = "[<>:\"/\\\\|?*^]+|[.]{2}";
String[] splits = source.split(regex);
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(splits));
Output
[aa, bb, cc, dd, ee, ff, gg, hh, ii, jj, kk, ll, mm, mn]

If java can do lookahead assertions, one way is this:
(?:(?!\.\.)[^<>:"/|?*])+ untested
edit the above will match up until the first ..
Its not clear what you are trying to do, but to validate the entire string to these conditions, simply add ^$ -
^(?:(?!\.\.)[^<>:"/|?*])+$ untested

#xonegirlz - The Way to exclude .. depends on what you're trying to do. Your "test case I need to pass" is some help, but the statement "needs to be" is vague.
It would be helpful if you could state it like
"I'm writing a function X that, given a String like Y,
would return a String like Z.
I'm trying to use a regex-replace to find ______ in Y
and replace all execpt _______ to return Z".
You're current question is asking only about negated character classes, and the answer to that is You can't do ("..") that way

Parsing quoted text in java

Is there an easy way to parse quoted text as a string to java? I have this lines like this to parse:
author="Tolkien, J.R.R." title="The Lord of the Rings"
publisher="George Allen & Unwin" year=1954
and all I want is Tolkien, J.R.R.,The Lord of the Rings,George Allen & Unwin, 1954 as strings.

You could either use a regex like
"(.+)"
It will match any character between quotes. In Java would be:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\"(.+)\\"";
Matcher m = p.matcher("author=\"Tolkien, J.R.R.\"");
while(matcher.find()){
System.out.println(m.group(1));
}
Note that group(1) is used, this is the second match, the first one, group(0), is the full string with quotes
Offcourse you could also use a substring to select everything except the first and last char:
String quoted = "author=\"Tolkien, J.R.R.\"";
String unquoted;
if(quoted.indexOf("\"") == 0 && quoted.lastIndexOf("\"")==quoted.length()-1){
unquoted = quoted.substring(1, quoted.lenght()-1);
}else{
unquoted = quoted;
}

There are some fancy pattern regex nonsense things that fancy people and fancy programmers like to use.
I like to use String.split(). It's a simple function and does what you need it to do.
So if I have a String word: "hello" and I want to take out "hello", I can simply do this:
myStr = string.split("\"")[1];
This will cut the string into bits based on the quote marks.
If I want to be more specific, I can do
myStr = string.split("word: \"")[1].split("\"")[0];
That way I cut it with word: " and "
Of course, you run into problems if word: " is repeated twice, which is what patterns are for. I don't think you'll have to deal with that problem for your specific question.
Also, be cautious around characters like . and . Split uses regex, so those characters will trigger funny behavior. I think that "\\" = \ will escape those funny rules. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Best of luck!

Can you presume your document is well-formed and does not contain syntax errors? If so, you are simply interested in every other token after using String.split().
If you need something more robust, you may need to use the Scanner class (or a StringBuffer and a for loop ;-)) to pick out the valid tokens, taking into account additional criterion beyond "I saw a quotation mark somewhere".
For example, some reasons you might need a more robust solution than splitting the string blindly on quotation marks: perhaps its only a valid token if the quotation mark starting it comes immediately after an equals sign. Or perhaps you do need to handle values that are not quoted as well as quoted ones? Will \" need to be handled as an escaped quotation mark, or does that count as the end of the string. Can it have either single or double quotes (eg: html) or will it always be correctly formatted with double quotes?
One robust way would be to think like a compiler and use a Java based Lexer (such as JFlex), but that might be overkill for what you need.
If you prefer a low-level approach, you could iterate through your input stream character by character using a while loop, and when you see an =" start copying the characters into a StringBuffer until you find another non-escaped ", either concatenating to the various wanted parsed values or adding them to a List of some sort (depending on what you plan to do with your data). Then continue reading until you encounter your start token (eg: =") again, and repeat.