PatternSyntaxException when using String.match()

Question

The following seemingly innocuous pattern is causing a PatternSyntaxException:

String pattern = "^(?:.*)\\s*{$"; // pattern is:   ^(?:.*)\s*{$

As you can see when you look at it in regexpal, it seems to work properly there.

For example, that string should match:

name {

The message I'm getting back is "Illegal repetition near index 9", but I have no idea what I'm doing that's illegal. The offending character is supposed to match any number of whitespace characters between the final section and the {.

Can anyone spot what I'm doing wrong?

SLaks · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-01 19:44:09Z

3

You need to escape the { with \\.

answered Nov 1, 2012 at 19:44

SLaks

891k182 gold badges1.9k silver badges2k bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Wug Over a year ago

I can't accept an answer yet for some reason but this has fixed it.

Rohit Jain Over a year ago

@Wug.. You would be able to do it after 10 minutes.

Rohit Jain · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-01 19:44:23Z

1

You need to escape your opening curly brace with two backslashes.

String pattern = "^(?:.*)\\s*\\{$"

answered Nov 1, 2012 at 19:44

Rohit Jain

214k45 gold badges419 silver badges534 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

PatternSyntaxException when using String.match()

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related