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Java Regex: Check for non word characters

Saliya Ekanayake 3:27 AM , , 2 comments
I wanted to test a given string to see if it contains any non word characters in Java. Initially I came up with a lengthy version ;) Then after a bit of search I could simply shorten it.

Version1: regular expression

"\\p{Alnum}*[~!@#$%^&*()\\+=\\-:;<>\\s?\\[\\]{},/\\\\\"]+\\p{Alnum}*"

Version2: regular expression

"\\p{Alnum}*\\W+\\p{Alnum}*"

Here's a nice guide (http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/essential/regex/index.html) to start with Java regular expressions

2 comments :

  1. Unknown5:06 AM

    Does not work for string with more than one non-word character distributed through the string e.g. "word&&word&&word" will fail.

    The Pattern ".*\\W+.*" covers this case

    ReplyDelete
  2. Saliya Ekanayake6:10 AM

    Thanks Patrick. In fact I used this to validate key strokes. That's why I didn't catch the issue you have pointed out.

    ReplyDelete

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