CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaregex
Shasapo
Shasapo

Reputation: 193

Java Regular expression Set Minimum characters

I'm new in using regex in java and now having problems getting my regular expression working.
I want to keep minimum 3 characters in a string, if it only 2 characters, i want to delete it.

here's my string :

It might be more sensible for real users if I also included a lower limit on the number of letters.

The output i want :

might more sensible for real users also includedlower limit the number letters.

So, i did some googling but still doesnt work. so basically here's the complete code (1-5 is the regex i've tried):

String input = "It might be more sensible for real users if I also included a lower limit on the number of letters.";
    //1. /^[a-zA-Z]{3,}$/
    //2. /^[a-zA-Z]{3,30}$/
    //3. \\b[a-zA-Z]{4,30}\\b
    //4.  ^\\W*(?:\\w+\\b\\W*){3,30}$
    //5. [+]?(?:[a-zA-Z]\\s*){3,30}

    String output = input.replaceAll("/^[a-zA-Z]{3,}$/", ""); 
    System.out.println(output);

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1114

Answers (2)

Linus
Linus

Reputation: 894

You can use \\w{1,3} to get any 1-2 word characters. You then need to make sure they are not adjacent to other word characters before removing them, so you check for non-word characters (\\W) and beginning or ending of the line (^ and $) like so:

String output = input.replaceAll("(^|\\W)\\w{1,3}($|\\W)", " ");

Note the extra space cleans up for the potentially 2 spaces we are removing.

Upvotes: 0

1218985
1218985

Reputation: 8012

You can try this:

package com.stackoverflow.answer;

public class RegexTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String input = "It might be more sensible for real users if I also included a lower limit on the number of letters.";
        System.out.println("BEFORE: " + input);
        input = input.replaceAll("\\b[\\w']{1,2}\\b", "").replaceAll("\\s{2,}", " ");
        System.out.println("AFTER: " + input);
    }

}

Upvotes: 2

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