I am trying to go through a document and change all instances of a name using regular expressions in Java. My code looks something like this:
Pattern replaceWordPattern = Pattern.compile("(^|\\s)" + replaceWord + "^|\\W");
followed by:
String line = matcher.replaceAll("Alice");
The problem is that this does not preserve the spaces or punctuation or other non-word characters that followed. If I had "Jack jumped" it becomes "Alicejumped". Does anyone know a way to fix this?
\W consumes the space after the replaceWord. Replace ^|\\W with word boundary \\b which does not consume symbols. Consider doing same for the first delimiter group, as I suspect you do not want to consume anything there too.
Pattern replaceWordPattern = Pattern.compile("\\b" + replaceWord + "\\b");
If semantic of word boundaries is not suitable for you, consider using lookahead and lookbehind constructs which do not consume input too.
You're missing brackets on the second non-whitespace character expression:
Pattern replaceWordPattern = Pattern.compile("[^|\\s]" + replaceWord + "[^|\\W]");
Related
I need to see if a whole word exists in a string. This is how I try to do it:
if(text.matches(".*\\" + word + "\\b.*"))
// do something
It's running for most words, but words that start with a g cause an error:
Exception in thread "main" java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException:
Illegal/unsupported escape sequence near index 3
.*\great life\b.*
^
How can I fix this?
The actual reason for the error is that you cannot escape an alphabetical character in a Java regex pattern that does not form a valid escape construct.
See Java regex documentation:
It is an error to use a backslash prior to any alphabetic character that does not denote an escaped construct; these are reserved for future extensions to the regular-expression language. A backslash may be used prior to a non-alphabetic character regardless of whether that character is part of an unescaped construct.
I'd use
Matcher m = Pattern.compile("\\b" + word + "\\b").matcher(text);
if (m.find()) {
// A match is found
}
If a word may contain/start/end with special chars, I'd use
Matcher m = Pattern.compile("(?!\\B\\w)" + Pattern.quote(word) + "(?<!\\w\\B)").matcher(text);
if (m.find()) {
// A match is found
}
The \\ thing proceeded by whatever character will be a interpreted as a metacharacter. E.g. ".*\\geza\\b.*" will try to find the \g escape sequence, ".*\\jani\\b.*" will try to find \j, etc.
Some of these sequences exist, others don't, you can check the Pattern docs for details. What's really troubling is that probably this isn't what you want.
I agree with Thomas Ayoub that probably you need to match \\b...\\b to find a word. I would go one step further and I'd use Pattern.quote to avoid unintended regex features that might come from word:
String text = "Lorem Ipsum a[asd]a sad";
String word = "a[asd]a";
if (text.matches(".*\\b" + Pattern.quote(word) + "\\b.*")) {
// do something
}
Using ".*\\" + word + "\\b.*" with word = great life will generate the string ".*\\great life\\b.*" which, as a value is .*\great life\b.*. The issue is that \g does not belong to the list of the escape sequences in JAVA (see What are all the escape characters in Java?)
You can use
if(text.matches(".*\\b" + word + "\\b.*"))
^
I'm trying to write a regular expression that checks ahead to make sure there is either a white space character OR an opening parentheses after the words I'm searching for.
Also, I want it to look back and make sure it is preceded by either a non-Word (\W) or nothing at all (i.e. it is the beginning of the statement).
So far I have,
"(\\W?)(" + words.toString() + ")(\\s | \\()"
However, this also matches the stuff at either ends - I want this pattern to match ONLY the word itself - not the stuff around it.
I'm using Java flavor Regex.
As you tagged your question yourself, you need lookarounds:
String regex = "(?<=\\W|^)(" + Pattern.quote(words.toString()) + ")(?= |[(])"
(?<=X) means "preceded by X"
(?<!=X) means "not preceded by X"
(?=X) means "followed by X"
(?!=X) means "not followed by X"
What about the word itself: will it always start with a word character (i.e., one that matches \w)? If so, you can use a word boundary for the leading condition.
"\\b" + theWord + "(?=[\\s(])"
Otherwise, you can use a negative lookbehind:
"(?<!\\w)" + theWord + "(?=[\\s(])"
I'm assuming the word is either quoted like so:
String theWord = Pattern.quote(words.toString());
...or doesn't need to be.
If you don't want a group to be captured by the matching, you can use the special construct (?:X)
So, in your case:
"(?:\\W?)(" + words.toString() + ")(?:\\s | \\()"
You will only have two groups then, group(0) for the whole string and group(1) for the word you are looking for.
I want a regular expression pattern that will match with the end of a string.
I'm implementing a stemming algorithm that will remove suffixes of a word.
E.g. for a word 'Developers' it should match 's'.
I can do it using following code :
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("s");
Matcher m = p.matcher("Developers");
m.replaceAll(" "); // it will replace all 's' with ' '
I want a regular expression that will match only a string's end something like replaceLast().
You need to match "s", but only if it is the last character in a word. This is achieved with the boundary assertion $:
input.replaceAll("s$", " ");
If you enhance the regular expression, you can replace multiple suffixes with one call to replaceAll:
input.replaceAll("(ed|s)$", " ");
Use $:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("s$");
public static void main(String[] args)
{
String message = "hi this message is a test message";
message = message.replaceAll("message$", "email");
System.out.println(message);
}
Check this,
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/regex/bounds.html
When matching a character at the end of string, mind that the $ anchor matches either the very end of string or the position before the final line break char if it is present even when the Pattern.MULTILINE option is not used.
That is why it is safer to use \z as the very end of string anchor in a Java regex.
For example:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("s\\z");
will match s at the end of string.
See a related Whats the difference between \z and \Z in a regular expression and when and how do I use it? post.
NOTE: Do not use zero-length patterns with \z or $ after them because String.replaceAll(regex) makes the same replacement twice in that case. That is, do not use input.replaceAll("s*\\z", " ");, since you will get two spaces at the end, not one. Either use "s\\z" to replace one s, or use "s+\\z" to replace one or more.
If you still want to use replaceAll with a zero-length pattern anchored at the end of string to replace with a single occurrence of the replacement, you can use a workaround similar to the one in the How to make a regular expression for this seemingly simple case? post (writing "a regular expression that works with String replaceAll() to remove zero or more spaces from the end of a line and replace them with a single period (.)").
I need to cut certain strings for an algorithm I am making. I am using substring() but it gets too complicated with it and actually doesn't work correctly. I found this topic how to cut string with two regular expression "_" and "."
and decided to try with split() but it always gives me
java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Dangling meta character '+' near index 0
+
^
So this is the code I have:
String[] result = "234*(4-5)+56".split("+");
/*for(int i=0; i<result.length; i++)
{
System.out.println(result[i]);
}*/
Arrays.toString(result);
Any ideas why I get this irritating exception ?
P.S. If I fix this I will post you the algorithm for cutting and then the algorithm for the whole calculator (because I am building a calculator). It is gonna be a really badass calculator, I promise :P
+ in regex has a special meaning. to be treated as a normal character, you should escape it with backslash.
String[] result = "234*(4-5)+56".split("\\+");
Below are the metacharaters in regex. to treat any of them as normal characters you should escape them with backslash
<([{\^-=$!|]})?*+.>
refer here about how characters work in regex.
The plus + symbol has meaning in regular expression, which is how split parses it's parameter. You'll need to regex-escape the plus character.
.split("\\+");
You should split your string like this: -
String[] result = "234*(4-5)+56".split("[+]");
Since, String.split takes a regex as delimiter, and + is a meta-character in regex, which means match 1 or more repetition, so it's an error to use it bare in regex.
You can use it in character class to match + literal. Because in character class, meta-characters and all other characters loose their special meaning. Only hiephen(-) has a special meaning in it, which means a range.
+ is a regex quantifier (meaning one or more of) so needs to be escaped in the split method:
String[] result = "234*(4-5)+56".split("\\+");
I want to remove all the leading and trailing punctuation in a string. How can I do this?
Basically, I want to preserve punctuation in between words, and I need to remove all leading and trailing punctuation.
., #, _, &, /, - are allowed if surrounded by letters
or digits
\' is allowed if preceded by a letter or digit
I tried
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(^\\p{Punct})|(\\p{Punct}$)");
Matcher m = p.matcher(term);
boolean a = m.find();
if(a)
term=term.replaceAll("(^\\p{Punct})", "");
but it didn't work!!
Ok. So basically you want to find some pattern in your string and act if the pattern in matched.
Doing this the naiive way would be tedious. The naiive solution could involve something like
while(myString.StartsWith("." || "," || ";" || ...)
myString = myString.Substring(1);
If you wanted to do a bit more complex task, it could be even impossible to do the way i mentioned.
Thats why we use regular expressions. Its a "language" with which you can define a pattern. the computer will be able to say, if a string matches that pattern. To learn about regular expressions, just type it into google. One of the first links: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/9099/The-30-Minute-Regex-Tutorial
As for your problem, you could try this:
myString.replaceFirst("^[^a-zA-Z]+", "")
The meaning of the regex:
the first ^ means that in this pattern, what comes next has to be at
the start of the string.
The [] define the chars. In this case, those are things that are NOT
(the second ^) letters (a-zA-Z).
The + sign means that the thing before it can be repeated and still
match the regex.
You can use a similar regex to remove trailing chars.
myString.replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z]+$", "");
the $ means "at the end of the string"
You could use a regular expression:
private static final Pattern PATTERN =
Pattern.compile("^\\p{Punct}*(.*?)\\p{Punct}*$");
public static String trimPunctuation(String s) {
Matcher m = PATTERN.matcher(s);
m.find();
return m.group(1);
}
The boundary matchers ^ and $ ensure the whole input is matched.
A dot . matches any single character.
A star * means "match the preceding thing zero or more times".
The parentheses () define a capturing group whose value is retrieved by calling Matcher.group(1).
The ? in (.*?) means you want the match to be non-greedy, otherwise the trailing punctuation would be included in the group.
Use this tutorial on patterns. You have to create a regex that matches string starting with alphabet or number and ending with alphabet or number and do inputString.matches("regex")