CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regex
user3613680
user3613680

Reputation:

Ignore specific characters in regex

I have this method to check if a string contains a special character, but I don't want it to check for specific characters such as (+ or -) how would I go about doing this?

public boolean containsSpecialCharacters(String teamName) {     
    Pattern p = Pattern.compile("[^a-z0-9 ]", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
    Matcher m = p.matcher(teamName);

    boolean b = m.find();
    if (b) {
       return true;
    }

    return false;
}

Upvotes: 8

Views: 65118

Answers (2)

hwnd
hwnd

Reputation: 70722

You can use the following. Simply add these characters inside of your negated character class.

Within a character class [], you can place a hyphen (-) as the first or last character. If you place the hyphen anywhere else you need to escape it (\-) in order to be matched.

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(?i)[^a-z0-9 +-]");

Regular expression:

(?i)            # set flags for this block (case-insensitive) 
[^a-z0-9+-]     # any character except: 'a' to 'z', '0' to '9', ' ', '+', '-'

Upvotes: 1

Pedro Lobito
Pedro Lobito

Reputation: 98861

You can try this:

[^\w +-]

REGEX EXPLANATION

[^\w +-]

Match a single character NOT present in the list below «[^\w +-]»
   A word character (letters, digits, and underscores) «\w»
   The character “ ” « »
   The character “+” «+»
   The character “-” «-»

Upvotes: 8

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