Illegal repetition exception when using String.replaceAll() method [duplicate]

Question

I have the following code:

    public String replaceValues(String string, HashMap hashMap){
    TestHashMap h = new TestHashMap();
    String str = new String(h.xmlToString());
    Iterator iterator = hashMap.entrySet().iterator();
    while(iterator.hasNext()){
        HashMap.Entry pair = (HashMap.Entry)iterator.next();
        str = str.replaceAll(pair.getKey().toString(), pair.getValue().toString());
    }
    return str; 
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    TestHashMap h = new TestHashMap();
    HashMap<String, String> hmap = new HashMap<String, String>();
    hmap.put("{username}", "Tudor");
    hmap.put("{password}", "Tester123");
    System.out.println(hmap);
    String replace = h.replaceValues(h.xmlToString(), hmap);
    System.out.println(replace);
}

XML file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<hashmap>
    <request>
        <username>{username}</username>
        <password>{password}</password>
    </request>
</hashmap>

This throws exception: Illegal repetition. But there is no way that i know of to escape the "{}" characters, because the way i'm getting those is with getKey() and getValue() methods, which returns me {password} and {username} as expected. However it breaks at String replace = h.replaceValues(h.xmlToString(), hmap) line. Any solutions please? It's worth mentioning that if i replace {password} with a random value (for example "password1") the code above works without issues.

Kayaman · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-19 11:02:49Z

6

The replaceAll method uses regular expressions, with { and } having special meaning. If you use replace(String, String) instead they're treated as normal Strings and there is no such issue.

answered Jan 19, 2017 at 11:02

Kayaman

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3 Comments

Bohemian Over a year ago

And despite the confusing name replaceAll() implying "not all" behaviour for replace(), replace() does in fact replace all occurrences.

user85421 Over a year ago

maybe you could add a reference to Pattern.quote(String), but using replace(String, String) is probably the better solution since there is apparently no need for regular expressions, actually could be error prone to use it

Tudor Over a year ago

Thanks for the answer!!

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