Java remove multiple characters from string

Question

I'm playing with string manipulation and I would like to do something like this, when a user types the lesson name: Windows Server, the program should remove Windows plus white space character and display only Server. I managed to do this using this code:

  Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);

    String lesson;

    System.out.println("Input lesson name: ");

    lesson = in.nextLine();

    String newLesson = lesson.replaceAll("Windows\\s+", "");

    System.out.println("New Lesson is " + newLesson);

But now I want to remove multiple characters like Linux and Unix. How would I include in my regex Linux and Unix?

If the user would type in Linux Administration, the program should display Administration only.

Do you have a defined list of words to remove? Do you always want to remove the first word? — assylias
– assylias, Commented Jan 5, 2014 at 17:29
So you just want to display the last word? Or just strip the first word? Pen down some test cases, and possible outcome for that, and from that, come to a definite rule. That would be better to deal with all inputs. — Rohit Jain
– Rohit Jain, Commented Jan 5, 2014 at 17:29
@RohitJain yes I want to just strip the first word with my defined list of words, Linux, Unix and Windows — Dunkey
– Dunkey, Commented Jan 5, 2014 at 17:31

Christian Tapia · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-05 17:33:06Z

2

If I understood the question, try:

String newLesson = lesson.replaceAll("(Windows|Linux|Unix)\\s+", "");

Output:

Input lesson name: 
Linux Administration
Administration

answered Jan 5, 2014 at 17:33

Christian Tapia

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Comments

Tim B · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-05 17:31:15Z

1

To remove only the first word your regex would ^\w+\s

This says:

^ match from the start of the string only
\w+ Find 1 or more non-whitespace characters, do not be greedy so stop as soon as you find a match for
\s a whitespace character".

answered Jan 5, 2014 at 17:31

Tim B

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Comments

Michael Hillman · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-05 17:33:50Z

1

You have two options here...

Create a Regex term that encompasses all the terms you want to remove, I think something like the below would do it (but I'm no Regex expert).
```
replaceAll("(Windows|Linux|Unix)\\s+", ""); 
```

Store the words you want to remove in a list then cycle through it, removing each term.

List<String> terms = new ArrayList<>(Arrays.asList{"Windows\\s+", "Linux\\s+", "Unix\\s+"});

for(String term : terms) {
    lesson = lesson.replaceAll(term, "");
}

answered Jan 5, 2014 at 17:33

Michael Hillman

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Comments

Rohit Jain · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-05 17:35:26Z

1

Since you just want to remove first word, and assuming that space is the delimiter, you can do it without regex:

String newLesson = lesson.substring(lesson.indexOf(" ") + 1);

answered Jan 5, 2014 at 17:35

Rohit Jain

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