How to use replaceAll when input contains spaces

Question

I have a newbie question about replaceAll method on String. It works fine as long as the input does not contain any type of space (breaking/non-breaking etc).

How to sanitize the input so it covers all cases for special space characters and I can use something like this:

String replaced = replaced.replaceAll("my-test (2)", "test"); // not working

I tried various types of regex with \\s, \u00A0 etc.

EDIT: I noticed that the braces are also causing some problems with replaceAll.

This is my case:

"my-value (2)".replaceAll("my-value (2)", "test);

What is the expected output given the input my-test (2) ?

Tim Biegeleisen
– Tim Biegeleisen

2020-06-02 09:14:48 +00:00
Commented Jun 2, 2020 at 9:14 — Tim Biegeleisen
– Tim Biegeleisen, Commented Jun 2, 2020 at 9:14

Tim Biegeleisen · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-02 09:17:21Z

4

I would use here:

String input = "my-value (2)";
String output = input.replaceAll("\\bmy-value\\s*\\(2\\)(?!\\S)", "test");
System.out.println(output);

This prints: test

Here is an explanation of the regex pattern:

\b        word boundary
my-value  match "my-value"
\s*       zero or more whitespace characters
\(2\)     match "(2)"
(?!\S)    assert that what follows is either whitespace or the end of the input

answered Jun 2, 2020 at 9:17

Tim Biegeleisen

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Comments

Natsu · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-02 09:18:14Z

1

This code is not going to compile. which IDE are you using? You are not even initialize the variable replaced and replaceAll() method uses regular expression. change replaceAll() to replace(). Try something like this.

String replaced = "my-test (2)";
replaced = replaced.replace("my-test (2)", "test");
System.out.println(replaced);

answered Jun 2, 2020 at 9:18

Natsu

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Comments

Ru Yu · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-02 09:16:21Z

0

First argument of replaceAll() method is regex. "my-test (2)" contains regex group "(2)". so try to use something like replaced.replaceAll("my-test \\(2\\)", "test"));

answered Jun 2, 2020 at 9:16

Ru Yu

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Krishna Mohan Shakya · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-02 09:35:47Z

0

Instead of using replaceAll() method, you can use replace(CharSequence target, CharSequence replacement). This will remove all the occurrence of the given string with new one. EX.

String sub=s.replace("my-test (2)", "test");

answered Jun 2, 2020 at 9:35

Krishna Mohan Shakya

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