CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaregex
nicordesigns
nicordesigns

Reputation: 904

Java RegEx to replace a string where the beginning and end part match a specific pattern

Hi I need to write a regular expression in java that will find all instances of :

wsp:rsidP="005816D6" wsp:rsidR="005816D6" wsp:rsidRDefault="005816D6"

attributes in an XML string and strip them out:

So I need to rip out all attributes that starts with wsp:rsid and ends with a double quote (")

Thoughts on this:

  1. String str = xmlstring.replaceAll("wsp:rsid/w", "");
  2. String str = xmlstring.replaceAll("wsp:rsid[]\\"", "");

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3766

Answers (4)

Bob Kuhar
Bob Kuhar

Reputation: 11130

xmlstring.replaceAll( "wsp:rsid\\w*?=\".*?\"", "" );

This works in my tests...

public void testReplaceAll() throws Exception {
    String regex = "wsp:rsid\\w*?=\".*?\"";

    assertEquals( "", "wsp:rsidP=\"005816D6\"".replaceAll( regex, "" ) );
    assertEquals( "", "wsp:rsidR=\"005816D6\"".replaceAll( regex, "" ) );
    assertEquals( "", "wsp:rsidRDefault=\"005816D6\"".replaceAll( regex, "" ) );
    assertEquals( "a=\"1\" >", "a=\"1\" wsp:rsidP=\"005816D6\">".replaceAll( regex, "" ) );
    assertEquals(
            "bob   kuhar",
            "bob wsp:rsidP=\"005816D6\" wsp:rsidRDefault=\"005816D6\" kuhar".replaceAll( regex, "" ) );
    assertEquals(
            " keepme=\"yes\" ",
            "wsp:rsidP=\"005816D6\" keepme=\"yes\" wsp:rsidR=\"005816D6\"".replaceAll( regex, "" ) );
    assertEquals(
            "<node a=\"l\"  b=\"m\"  c=\"r\">",
            "<node a=\"l\" wsp:rsidP=\"0\" b=\"m\" wsp:rsidR=\"0\" c=\"r\">".replaceAll( regex, "" ) );
    // Sadly doesn't handle the embedded \" case...
    // assertEquals( "", "wsp:rsidR=\"hello\\\"world\"".replaceAll( regex, "" ) );
}

Upvotes: 2

fge
fge

Reputation: 121720

Try:

xmlstring.replaceAll("\\bwsp:rsid\\w*=\"[^\"]+(\\\\\"[^\"]*)*\"", "");

Also, your regexes are wrong. I suggest you go and plough through http://regular-expressions.info ;)

Upvotes: 1

Bohemian
Bohemian

Reputation: 425033

Unlike all other answers, this answer actually works!

xmlstring.replaceAll("\\bwsp:rsid\\w*?=\"[^\"]*\"", "");

Here's a test that fails with all other answers:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    String xmlstring = "<tag wsp:rsidR=\"005816D6\" foo=\"bar\" wsp:rsidRDefault=\"005816D6\">hello</tag>";
    System.out.println(xmlstring);
    System.out.println(xmlstring.replaceAll("\\bwsp:rsid\\w*?=\"[^\"]*\"", ""));
}

Output:

<tag wsp:rsidR="005816D6" foo="bar" wsp:rsidRDefault="005816D6">hello</tag>
<tag  foo="bar" >hello</tag>

Upvotes: 0

Chris Everitt
Chris Everitt

Reputation: 165

Here are 2 functions. clean will do the replacement, extract will extract the data (if you want it, not sure)

Please excuse the style, I wanted you to be able to cut and paste the functions.

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;


public class Answer {

    public static HashMap<String, String> extract(String s){
        Pattern pattern  = Pattern.compile("wsp:rsid(.+?)=\"(.+?)\"");
        Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(s);
        HashMap<String, String> hm = new HashMap<String, String>();

        //The first group is the string between the wsp:rsid and the =
        //The second is the value
        while (matcher.find()){
            hm.put(matcher.group(1), matcher.group(2));
        }

        return hm;
    }

    public static String clean(String s){
        Pattern pattern  = Pattern.compile("wsp:rsid(.+?)=\"(.+?)\"");
        Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(s);
        return matcher.replaceAll("");
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        System.out.print(clean("sadfasdfchri wsp:rsidP=\"005816D6\" foo=\"bar\" wsp:rsidR=\"005816D6\" wsp:rsidRDefault=\"005816D6\""));
        HashMap<String, String> m = extract("sadfasdfchri wsp:rsidP=\"005816D6\" foo=\"bar\" wsp:rsidR=\"005816D6\" wsp:rsidRDefault=\"005816D6\"");
        System.out.println("");

        //ripped off of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1066589/java-iterate-through-hashmap
        for (String key : m.keySet()) {
            System.out.println("Key: " + key + ", Value: " + m.get(key));
        }

    }   

}

returns:

sadfasdfchri  foo="bar"

Key: RDefault, Value: 005816D6

Key: P, Value: 005816D6

Key: R, Value: 005816D6

Upvotes: 0

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