String replaceAll doesn't like commas

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O.B. - 31 Jan 2006 02:27 GMT

Why doesn't the following turn "Bubba, Inc." into "Bubba\, Inc."?

String test = "Bubba, Inc.";
test = test.replaceAll(",", "\\,");

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Stefan Ram - 31 Jan 2006 02:34 GMT

"O.B." <funkjunk@bellsouth.net> did not write:

>Why doesn't the following turn "Alpha, Inc." into "Alpha\, Inc."?
>String test = "Alpha, Inc.";
>test = test.replaceAll(",", "\\,");

Why not just read about it in the documentation?

http://download.java.net/jdk6/docs/api/java/lang/String.html#replaceAll(java.lan
g.String,%20java.lang.String)

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O.B. - 31 Jan 2006 02:53 GMT

> "O.B." <funkjunk@bellsouth.net> did not write:
>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> http://download.java.net/jdk6/docs/api/java/lang/String.html#replaceAll(java.lan
g.String,%20java.lang.String)

What's wrong with my regular expression?

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mikm - 31 Jan 2006 03:03 GMT

Change "\\," to "\\\\,"

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Roedy Green - 31 Jan 2006 04:39 GMT

>>>test = test.replaceAll(",", "\\,");
>>
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
>What's wrong with my regular expression?

\\ is a magic character to regexes and in a magic character to Java
string literals. You have to "quote" it for both. The docs are not
clear unless you read up on Matcher.replaceAll, but he second parm is
a regex too, not just a simple string.

See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/regex.html#QUOTING
http://mindprod.com/regex.html#AWKWARD

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

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Roedy Green - 31 Jan 2006 04:53 GMT

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 04:39:29 GMT, Roedy Green
<my_email_is_posted_on_my_website@munged.invalid> wrote, quoted or
indirectly quoted someone who said :

>>What's wrong with my regular expression?
>
>\\ is a magic character to regexes and in a magic character to Java
>string literals. You have to "quote" it for both. The docs are not
>clear unless you read up on Matcher.replaceAll, but he second parm is
>a regex too, not just a simple string.

see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/string.html#REPLACE

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

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George - 31 Jan 2006 02:58 GMT

> Why doesn't the following turn "Bubba, Inc." into "Bubba\, Inc."?
>
> String test = "Bubba, Inc.";
> test = test.replaceAll(",", "\\,");

Try this:

test = test.replaceAll(",", "\\\\,");

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Jeffrey Schwab - 31 Jan 2006 03:14 GMT

> Why doesn't the following turn "Bubba, Inc." into "Bubba\, Inc."?
>
> String test = "Bubba, Inc.";
> test = test.replaceAll(",", "\\,");

The double quotes eat one backslash. The regex parser eats the other.
Try "\\\\,".

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Alan Krueger - 31 Jan 2006 21:38 GMT

>> Why doesn't the following turn "Bubba, Inc." into "Bubba\, Inc."?
>>
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> The double quotes eat one backslash. The regex parser eats the other.
> Try "\\\\,".

It gets really fun when you want to quote backslashes in a string with
an additional backslash:

someString.replaceAll("\\\\", "\\\\\\\\");

That's a lot of backslashes.

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Stefan Ram - 31 Jan 2006 21:49 GMT

>someString.replaceAll("\\\\", "\\\\\\\\");
>That's a lot of backslashes.

class String
{ final java.lang.String string;
public String( final java.lang.String string )
{ this.string = string; }
public java.lang.String replaceAll
( final java.lang.String search,
final java.lang.String replace )
{ return this.string.replaceAll
( java.util.regex.Pattern.quote( search ),
java.util.regex.Matcher.quoteReplacement( replace )); }}
public class Main
{ public static void main( final java.lang.String[] args )
{ java.lang.System.out.println
( new String( "a\\b" ).replaceAll( "\\", "\\\\" )); }}

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Alan Krueger - 01 Feb 2006 05:05 GMT

> { return this.string.replaceAll
> ( java.util.regex.Pattern.quote( search ),
> java.util.regex.Matcher.quoteReplacement( replace )); }}

Some of us don't have the pleasure of being able to target a 1.5 JRE/JDK
yet.

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Roedy Green - 31 Jan 2006 04:25 GMT

>String test = "Bubba, Inc.";
>test = test.replaceAll(",", "\\,");

see
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/string.html#REPLACE

Signature

Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

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