How to write a regex in java for a String with parenthesis?

Question

I am trying to parse a C language code in java and I encountered statements like

printf("hello world");

I was using Pattern.compile("printf/(/".*/"/)"); but was getting an error stating that

/( is not a valid escape sequence

Please give a way to tackle this kind of scenario.

Avinash Raj · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-27 13:41:06Z

2

To escape a character, you need to use backslash instead of forward slash. Since ( is a special meta character, you need to escape that also.

Pattern.compile("printf\\(\".*?\"\\);");

Example:

String value = "printf(\"hello world\");";
System.out.println(value.matches("printf\\(\".*?\"\\);"));
//=> true

answered Mar 27, 2015 at 13:31

Avinash Raj

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