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javaregexcsvreplace
George
George

Reputation: 81

Java Regex to remove start/end single quotes but leave inside quotes

I have data from a CSV file that is enclosed in single quotes, like:

'Company name'
'Price: $43.50'
'New York, New York'

I want to be able to replace the single quotes at the start/end of the value but leave quotes in the data, like:

'Joe's Diner'  should become Joe's Diner

I can do 

updateString = theString.replace("^'", "").replace("'$", "");

but I wanted to know if I could combine it to only do one replace.

Upvotes: 8

Views: 13467

Answers (3)

Prakash Palnati
Prakash Palnati

Reputation: 3419

You can use regex to remove double quotes around digits/numbers.

jsonString.replaceAll("\"(\\d+)\"","$1");

above will not work if negative numbers are present.

for negative numbers, the regex will be a little complex like below. But I haven't tried it.

"([0-9]+\.{0,1}[0-9]*)"

Upvotes: 0

Josiah
Josiah

Reputation: 4854

You could use the or operator.

updateString = theString.replaceAll("(^')|('$)","");

See if that works for you :)

Upvotes: 17

Matthew Flaschen
Matthew Flaschen

Reputation: 285047

updateString = theString.replaceFirst("^'(.*)'$", "$1");

Note that the form you have no won't work because replace uses literal strings, not regexes.

This works by using a capturing group (.*), which is referred to with $1 in the replacement text. You could also do something like:

Pattern patt = Pattern.compile("^'(.*)'$"); // could be stored in a static final field.
Matcher matcher = patt.matcher(theString);
boolean matches = matcher.matches();
updateString = matcher.group(1);

Of course, if you're certain there's a single quote at the beginning and end, the simplest solution is:

updateString = theString.substring(1, theString.length() - 1);

Upvotes: 1

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