CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javastringsearchreplace
samwise
samwise

Reputation: 23

Search and replace words in Java

I have a string, with characters a-z, A-Z, 0-9, (, ), +, -, etc.

I want to find every word within that string and replace it with the same word with 'word' (single quotes added). Words in that string can be preceded/followed by "(", ")", and spaces.

How do I go about doing that?

Input:

(Movie + 2000)

Output:

('Movie' + '2000')

Upvotes: 2

Views: 8278

Answers (4)

cmplr
cmplr

Reputation: 1

It makes sense to return string only if a replacement took place, see below:

if(s>0)
    return result.toString();
else
    return null;

Upvotes: 0

Denis Tulskiy
Denis Tulskiy

Reputation: 19177

As stated in the comments, regex is a good way to go:

String input = "(Movie + 2000)";

input = input.replaceAll("[A-Za-z0-9]+", "'$0'");

You don't give a precise defition of 'word', so I assume it is any combination of letters and numbers.

EDIT OK, thanks to @Buhb for explaining why this solution is not the best one. Better solution was given by @Bohemian.

Upvotes: 0

Bohemian
Bohemian

Reputation: 425033

Keep it simple! This does what you need:

String input = "(Movie + 2000)";

input.replaceAll("\\b", "'");  
// Outputs  "('Movie' + '2000')"

This uses the regex \b, which is a "word boundary". What could be simpler?

Upvotes: 7

Vik Gamov
Vik Gamov

Reputation: 5456

public class Main {

/**
 * @param args
 */
public static void main(String[] args) {

    String str1 = "Hello string";
    String str2 = "str";

    System.out.println(replace(str1, str2, "'" + str2 + "'"));
}

static String replace(String str, String pattern, String replace) {
    int s = 0;
    int e = 0;
    StringBuffer result = new StringBuffer();

    while ((e = str.indexOf(pattern, s)) >= 0) {
        result.append(str.substring(s, e));
        result.append(replace);
        s = e + pattern.length();
    }
    result.append(str.substring(s));
    return result.toString();
}
}

Output: Hello 'str'ing

WBR

Upvotes: 0

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